FOR TEACHERS AND PUPILS 



Exercise II. Spring Travelers 

 Correlated Studies: Geography, Map- Making and Clay-Modeling 



It is rather difficult to think of studying geography, the way it ought to be 

 studied, according to the actual ups and downs of the earth's surface, instead of 

 on a flat map or polished globe. Maps and globes are useful; without them we 

 could hardly gain a clear idea, perhaps, of the relation of all the land and water 

 areas which make up the earth's surface. 



Still, we can never see the world as it really is, unless we try to look at it, as 

 the bird does, from above. 



Beginning with that part of the world with which we are most familiar, 

 let us take a large lump of modeling clay, and out of part of it first make a 

 perfectly flat surface. After tracing the entire coast-line of North America 

 on this surface, we will next mold and place upon it three great mountain- 

 ranges — the Sierras and Rockies in the West, and the Alleghany in the East, 

 dotting in, with smaller lumps of clay, the White and Green Mountains and the 

 Adirondacks and Catskills. Lastly, we will scoop out the Great Lakes, the 

 St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, and Hudson Rivers, and also the 

 Gulfs of Mexico and California and Hudson Bay. 



Without attempting in this lesson, to place the mountains, lakes and 

 rivers of Mexico, or of Central and British America, we may complete this 

 rough model by outlining the principal islands from the West Indies to New- 

 foundland on the Atlantic coast, and from Guadalupe to the Aleutian Islands 

 on the Pacific. 



So far, we have only succeeded in finding some of the most striking land and 

 water differences of the earth's surface as they appear in North America. 



Remembering what we have already learned about the weather and tem- 

 perature, let us next try to think of the climates, that is, the heat and cold 

 differences, which occur over this vast surface of land and water. Turning to 

 any geography, we find lines running from east to west across the globe, called 

 lines of latitude. These lines help to show us distances on the earth's surface, 

 from a middle line, called the equator, to each of the poles. By means of these 

 lines, we may quickly locate some of the principal heat and cold differences, or 

 climates. 



Down around the equator, and for some distance north and south of it, 

 we learn that it is very hot, because more of the sun's heat strikes this part of 

 the earth than any other. From o (the equator) to 15°, let us mark our map, 

 ''very hot" and from 15° to 25°, "hot." All of this hot region we may describe 

 as torrid, and call it tropical in climate. 



From 25° to 35°, we will say it is "warm;" from 35° to 45°, "medium;" 

 from 45° to 55°, "cool," and all of this region we may describe as temperate. 



(120) 



