THE HEMISPHERES. 43 



land and the sea, there is much more local action in 

 the northern hemisphere than in the southern, and also 

 much more seasonal action between the two, than if 

 the land had borne the same proportion to the sea in 

 both. One result of this excess of sea in the southern 

 hemisphere would naturally be expected, namely, that at 

 certain seasons the southern lands should be drenched 

 with rain. But there is another, which at first sight 

 we would not so readily expect, and that is, that the 

 same lands should, at other seasons, be burnt up by 

 excessive drought, and be more arid in their character, 

 and more bare of useful vegetation than those of the 

 other hemisphere* Such, however, is the fact ; and ex- 

 treme aridity, a surface worn almost to desolation by 

 the extremes of weather, and the paucity of that vege- 

 tation which civilised man finds the most valuable, are 

 the characteristics of New Holland, Southern Africa, 

 and South America the principal lands on the south 

 side of the equator though they are less striking in 

 some parts of South America than in the other coun- 

 tries, because the mountains there are of sufficient 

 altitude for preserving a perennial supply of snow. 



But before we can perfectly see how the varied ac- 

 tion of the sun upon the different surfaces which the 

 earth presents, occasions those modifications of seasons 

 and their productions, that are the basis of so much 

 of the commercial intercourse of mankind, it will be 

 necessary to glance at the annual motion of the point 

 of greatest heat, or where the sun appears to be ver- 

 tical. 



Some time, then, on the 22d of December, the sun, 

 which has, from the 21st of June, been descending 



