140 . STEPPES A.ND DESERTS. 



to 4 Beaumuiy or 41 Fahrenheit. Snow falls almost 

 daily, and the highest atmospheric temperature observed 

 by Churruca (1788) in December, (the summer of those 

 regions), was not above 9 R., or 52.2 Eahr. The Cabo 

 Pilar, whose towering rock, though only 218 toises, or 

 1394 English feet high, may be regarded as the southern 

 termination of the chain of the Andes, is almost in the 

 same latitude as Berlin. (Relacion del Yiage al Estrecho 

 de Magallaues, apendice, 1793, p. 76.) 



While in the Northern Hemisphere all the continents 

 attain a sort of mean limit towards the Pole, coinciding 

 pretty regularly with the parallel of 70, the terminating 

 points in the Southern Hemisphere, of America, in the 

 deeply indented and intersected Tierra del Fuego, of 

 Australia, and of Africa, are respectively 34, 46, 

 and 56 distant from the south pole. The temperature 

 of the very unequal extents of ocean, which divide these 

 southern points from the icy pole, contributes very mate- 

 rially to modify their climates. The areas of dry land in 

 the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are to each other 

 in the proportion of 3 to 1. But this inferiority in extent 

 of continental masses in the Southern Hemisphere, as 

 compared with the Northern, belongs much more to the 

 temperate than to the torrid zone. In the temperate zones 

 of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the ratio 

 is as 13 to 1 ; in the torrid zones as 5 to 4. The great 

 inequality in the distribution of the dry land exercises a very 

 sensible influence on the strength of the ascending aerial 



