132 TROPICAL SEASONS. 



speaking begins with the rains (May and June), and lasts all 

 the rains; August and September are fruiting months, and 

 these are followed by rest for such crops. Then, however, 

 Oats, Barley, Tobacco, Wheat, Sesamum, Poppy, and all 

 Pulses are put in to be reaped in spring. In Malabar on the 

 average the seasons are the same, but the dry season is so damp 

 that the most tropical crops can be raised all the year round. 



Of course in the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are the 

 reverse of those in the Northern, midwinter in Sydney cor- 

 respondiug with midsummer in Europe. 



In the tropical parts of America, where Humboldt found 

 the mean temperature of the coldest month not to be lower 

 than 79'16° at Cumana, we shall be justified in concluding that 

 the temperature of the earth's surface never falls permanently 

 below that amount ; and as the mean summer temperature of 

 the place was found to be 83'04°, so it is probable that the 

 earth wiU have somethiag above that degree of warmth, on an 

 average, in the summer. 



For the warmest month, thia great observer gives 84-38° as the mean, 

 which corresponds remarkably with the temperature a foot below the 

 surface in New Grenada, where, according to a correspondent of Mr. 

 Hay, it is 85° during summer, " as a gentleman, a planter there, wrote 

 home for his information." (See LoudorHs Oard. Mag,, vi. 437.) 



