81 
and frost. The sky, even in calm and 
serene weather, is covered with dense 
white clouds, the repositories of the snow 
so often falling. 
The degree of heat experienced in 
these northern latitudes, being so much 
greater than is experienced in the same 
latitudes in the southern hemisphere, is 
supposed to proceed from the greater 
quantity of land in the north reflecting 
the rays of the sun, which in the south 
are absorbed by the ocean. Whatever 
hypothesis may be adduced to account 
for the greater temperature of the north, 
the fact itself is indisputable. Terra del 
Fuego, situated only in fifty-five degrees 
south latitude, is extremely cold; and 
Captain Cook could not penetrate farther 
than the seventy-first degree of latitude, 
a distance far short of what the Green¬ 
land ships are every year in the habit of 
sailing towards the other Pole. 
Thunder and lightning are unknown 
F 
