348 



Costanzo. There fell at Vera-Cruz, in 1803, in 

 the months of July, August, and September only, 

 thirty-five inches two lines (pied du roi) ; in the 

 whole year, sixty-two inches two lines of rain- 

 water ; yet there is a great difference between the 

 bare and arid climate of the coast of Mexico, and 

 that of the forests. On that coast not a drop of 

 rain falls in December or January ; and the 

 months of February, April, and May, generally 

 produce only from two inches to two inches 

 three lines : at San Carlos, on the contrary, the 

 atmosphere seems to resolve itself into water 

 during nine or ten successive months. In these 

 humid climates, the earth in the space of a year 

 would be covered with a stratum of water eight 

 feet deep, if there were no evaporation or flow- 

 ing off of the fluid. These equatorial rains, 

 which swell the majestic rivers of America, 

 are accompanied by electric explosions ; and 

 while at the extremity of that continent, on 

 the western coast of Greenland, the noise of 

 thunder is not heard once during five or six 

 years* ; here, near the equator, the clouds are 

 almost daily rumbling. The coincidence of the 

 electric explosions and the rains, however, does 



* The Chevalier Giseke, who resided seven years in the 

 seventieth degree of latitude, saw lightning only once, during 

 the long exile, to which he condemned himself from his love 

 of the sciences. On the coast of Greenland the noise of 

 avalanches, or that caused by the fall of ice, is often con- 

 founded with the sound of thunder. 



