THE CLIMATES OF THE OCEAN. 239 
above summer heat as far up as the parallel of 40°. Here heat 
to temper the winter climate of Western Europe is stored away 
as in an air-chamber to furnace-heated apartments ; and during 
the winter, when the fire of the solar rays sinks down, the west- 
wardly winds and eastwardly currents are sent to perform their 
office in this benign arrangement. Though unstable and capri- 
cious to us they seem to be, they nevertheless " fulfill His com- 
mandments" with regularity and perform their offices with cer- 
tainty. In tempering the climates of Europe with heat in winter 
that Ijas been bottled away in the waters of the ocean during sum- 
mer, they are to be regarded as the flues and the regulators for 
distributing at the right time, and at the right places, in the right 
quantities. 
' 513. By March, when "the winter is past and gone," the fur- 
-nace which had been started by the rays of the sun in the pre- 
vious summer, and which, by autumn, had heated up the ocean 
in our hemisphere, has gone down. The caldron of St. Roque, 
ceasing in activity, has failed in its supplies, and the chambers of 
warmth upon the northern sea, having been exhausted of their 
heated water, which has been expended in the manner already ex- 
plained, have contracted their limits. The surface of heated wa- 
ter which, in September, was spread out over the western half of 
the Atlantic, from the equator to the parallel of 40° north, and 
which raised this immense area to the temperature of 80° and up- 
ward, is not to be found in early spring on this side of the parallel 
of 8° north. . ■ 
514. The isotherm of 80° in March, after quitting the Caribbean 
Sea, runs parallel with the South American coast toward Cape 
St. Roque, keeping some 8 or 10 degrees from it. Therefore the 
heat dispensed over Europe from this caldron falls off in March. 
But at this season the sun comes forth with fresh supplies ; he 
then crosses the line and passes over into the northern hemi- 
sphere ; observations show that the process of heating the water 
in this great caldron for the next winter is now about to commence. 
515. In the mean time, so benign is the system of cosmical ar- 
rangements, another process of raising the temperature of Europe 
commences. The land is more readily impressed than the sea by 
the heat of the solar rays ; at this season, then, the summer cli- 
mate due these transatlantic latitudes is modified by the action of 
I 
