ABOUT THE WEATHER. 1*23 



It is remarkable enough, that this changeable zone, 

 which might be imagined to be the least favourable to 

 the development of the human race, includes almost all 

 middle Asia, the northern coast of Africa, Europe and 

 North America, consequently the whole arena in which the 

 history of humanity and its spiritual unfolding is acted out. 

 Perhaps this phenomenon may be connected with the fact 

 that in this region such a peculiar influence is exerted on 

 the development of the vegetable world, that without the 

 aid of human activity, it cannot produce a sufficient amount 

 of nourishment for any considerable number of men ; and 

 thus, even for the satisfaction of the first and most pressing 

 necessity, calls upon man for mental effort. Beyond this 

 region, in the neighbourhood of the poles, the climate appears 

 again subject to simpler laws ; but from causes easily con- 

 ceived, we are still in want of sufficient observations in those 

 places, to enable us to speak of them with certainty. 



Having thus, on the one hand, roughly sketched out the 

 distribution of the weather on the earth, and found the 

 simple laws which cause its variations, we must not, on the 

 other side, forget that this regular distribution would only 

 hold good for an earth, the surface of which was every 

 where uniform, which was either wholly covered with water 

 or clothed with a smooth, even layer of earth. But this is 

 not the case here ; and the distinctions between sea and 

 land, plain and mountain, bare sandy deserts and densely- 

 wooded tracts, &c., cause so many interruptions in the 

 action of those simple laws, that it was long before the 

 simple basis was perceived through the complicated con- 

 ditions which had been enumerated. Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt it was, who thus became the discoverer of scientific 

 Meteorology, and Dove he who, with eminent talent, first 

 developed the system on all its sides. 



