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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 -J~, (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. dc la Societe cT Arcueil, Tom. Hi. 



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

 gins to augment at La Guavra. 



