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places on the Earth * ; that the quantity of 

 heat which it receives in the course of a year 

 is a little greater than that felt at Cumana ; 

 but that in the months of November, December, 

 and January*}-, (at equal distance from the 

 two passages of the Sun through the zenith of 

 the town), the atmosphere cools more at La 

 Guayra. May not this cooling, much slight- 

 er than that which is felt almost at the same 

 time at Vera Cruz and at the Havannah, be 

 the effect of the more western position of La 

 Guayra? The aerial ocean, which appears to 

 form only one mass, is agitated by currents, the 

 limits of which are fixed by immutable laws ; 

 and it's temperature is variously modified by 

 the configuration of the lands and seas by which 

 it is sustained. It may be subdivided into se- 

 veral basins, which overflow into each other, 

 and of which the most agitated (for instance, 

 that placed over the Gulf of Mexico, or between 



* In Asia the mean temperatures of Abushar, of Madras, 

 and of Batavia, are not above 25° and 27° : but the hottest 

 month at Madras rises to 32°, according to Roxburgh ; and 

 at Abushar, on the Persian Gulf, according to Mr. Jukes, 

 to 33*9° ; which is from two to four degrees higher than at 

 Cairo. See Barrow's Voyage to Cochinchina, p. 180 ; 

 Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. ii, p. 505 ; and my essay 

 on the distribution of heat, and the isothermal lines, in the 

 Mem. de la Societe d' Arcueil, Totn. Hi. 



+ From the middle of the month of January the heat be- 

 gins to augment at La Guayra. 



