CLIMATE OF UEUGUAY. 333 



range of temperature, which at Monte Video oscillates as much as 72^ or 73° 

 Fahr. This city, lying under a latitude corresponding in the southern to that of 

 Algiers in the northern hemisphere, presents the normal alternation of the four 

 seasons, although winter is so mild that practically the inhabitants distinguish 

 only between the warm period, from October to April, and the cool period for the 

 rest of the year. Owing to exceptional radiation in a clear sky the glass falls 

 now and then below freezing point ; but as a rule July, the coldest month, corre- 

 sponds to April in Paris. 



In the interior the summer heats seem at times almost unbearable, but this 

 is due to the conflagrations in the bush country, spreading a mantle of dense 

 smoke far and wide. The most unpleasant feature of the climate is the great 

 difference between the cold mornings and the warm mid-day heats, a diff'erence 

 which usually does not exceed 10° Fahr., but which sometimes rises to 28° and 

 even 32° in a space of eight hours. Such discrepancies, which are very trying to 

 strangers, occur especially in spring (September and October), when the biting 

 winds most prevail. 



In the Uruguay valley the atmospheric currents usually set in the direction of 

 the river, either north and south or south and north. But on the seaboard the 

 normal south-east trades blow steadily throughout the summer season. They 

 prevail also in the cool season, but are then frequently interrupted either by 

 northern breezes or by the pampero, which comes from the south-west. Although 

 the most dangerous, this pampero is also the great purifier, sweej)ing all vapours, 

 fogs, and particles of dust from the atmosphere, drying the saturated ground, and 

 by the accompanying slight frosts destroying myriads of insects injurious to the 

 vegetation. 



But there is also a wet, or "dirty " pampero (pampero sucio), which is often 

 accompanied by tremendous downpours, especially when it blows from the north 

 in the summer season. " The sheets of water that come down perfectly straight 

 all through the day and night without a break, are accompanied by equally con- 

 tinuous thunder and lightning, which seem to work their way right round the 

 heavens, and to box the entire compass. The thunder is one unceasing mulHed 

 roll, out of which burst sudden fierce claps of deafening violence ; the lightning 

 playing meanwhile almost uninterruptedly at every point of the horizon, and leap- 

 ing forth now and then into a great scorching flame, which for a moment lights up 

 the whole world with a lurid blue and yellow. The darkness, too, is very striking, 

 and almost equals that of a dense London fog ; while the heat seems to increase 

 rather than to yield to the storm, and one sits as in a prolonged vapour-bath, with 

 the most trying sense of physical j)rostration and depression of spirits. These 

 storms, in fact, do not in the least clear the atmosphere, and relief only comes 

 when the wind veers round to the south-east, and brings with it a renewed feeling 

 of vigour and elasticity, as marked as were the languor and dejection before." * 



There is no well-marked rainy season, and the precipitation is very unequally 



* Sir Horace Eumbold, T/ie Great Silver Hiver, p. 130. 



