18 TKOPICAL NATURE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



without some hours of sunshine, while even in the 

 driest months there are occasional showers to cool and 

 refresh the overheated earth. As a result of this con- 

 dition of the earth and atmosphere, there is no check to 

 vegetation, and little if any demarcation of the seasons. 

 Plants are all evergreen ; flowers and fruits, although 

 more abundant at certain seasons, are never altogether 

 absent ; while many annual food-plants as well as some 

 fruit-trees produce two crops a year. In other cases, more 

 than one complete year is required to mature the large 

 and massive fruits, so that it is not uncommon for fruit 

 to be ripe at the same time that the tree is covered with 

 flowers, in preparation for the succeeding crop. This is 

 the case with the Brazil nut tree, in the forests of the 

 Amazon, and with many other tropical as with a few 

 temperate fruits. 



Uniformity of the Equatorial Climate in all Parts of 

 the Glohe. — The description of the climatal phenomena 

 of the equatorial zone here given, has been in great part 

 drawn from long personal experience in South America 

 and in the Malay Archipelago. Over a large portion of 

 these countries the same general features prevail, only 

 modified by varying local conditions. Whether we are 

 at Singapore or Batavia ; in the Moluccas, or New 

 Guinea ; at Para, at the sources of the Rio Negro, or on 

 the Upper Amazon, the equatorial climate is essentially 

 the same, and we have no reason to believe that it 

 materially differs in Guinea or the Congo. In certain 

 localities, however, a more contrasted wet and dry 

 season prevails, with a somewhat greater range of the 

 thermometer. This is generally associated with a sandy 

 soil, and a less dense forest, or with an open and more 



