Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates (Vol. 1 of 2): with scientific elucidationsHumboldt, Alexander von
Science
Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates (Vol. 1 of 2): with scientific elucidations
Humboldt, Alexander von
Physical geography; Plant morphology; Science; South America -- Description and travel
is 9° Reaumur, or 52°.2 Fahrenheit, and is therefore 1°.6 Reaumur, or
3°.6 Fahrenheit, less than that of Toulon. Rome is almost a degree of
latitude farther from the equator than Hobart Town, and has an annual
temperature of 12°.3 R., or 59°.8 Fahr.;--a winter temperature of 6°.5
R., or 46°.4 Fahr.,--and a summer temperature of 24° R., or 86° Fahr.;
these three values being in Hobart Town 8°.9, 4°.5, and 13°.8 R., or
52°.0, 42°.2, and 63°.0 Fahr. In Dusky Bay, New Zealand, tree-ferns
grow in S. lat. 46° 8′, and in the Auckland and Campbell Islands, even
in 53° S. lat. (Jos. Hooker, Flora Antarctica, 1844, p. 107.)
In the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego,--where, in the same latitude
as Dublin, the mean winter temperature is 0°.4 Reaumur, (33° Fah.) and
the mean summer temperature only 8° R., or 50° Fahr.,--Captain King
found the “vegetation thriving most luxuriantly in large woody-stemmed
trees of Fuchsia and Veronica”; while this vigour of vegetation,
which, especially on the western coast of America in 38° and 40° of
south latitude, is so picturesquely described by Charles Darwin,
suddenly disappears south of Cape Horn, on the rocks of the Southern
Orkney and Shetland Islands, and of the Sandwich Archipelago. These
Islands, but scantily covered with grass, moss, and lichens, “Terres de
Désolation,” as the French navigators call them, are still far north
of the Antarctic Circle; whereas in the Northern Hemisphere in 70° of
latitude, at the extremity of Scandinavia, fir-trees attain a height
of between 60 and 70 English feet. (Compare Darwin in the “Journal of
Researches,” 1845, p. 244, with King in vol. i. of the Narrative of the
Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, p. 577.) If we compare Tierra del
Fuego, and particularly Port Famine in the Straits of Magellan in lat.
53° 38′, with Berlin, which is one degree nearer the equator, we find
for
Berlin 6°.8, -0°.5/13°.9 R., 47°.2, 30°.8/63°.2 Fahr.; and for
Port Famine 4°.7, 1°.2/8°.0 R., 42°.6, 34°.8/50°.0 Fahr.
I subjoin in one view the few well-assured temperature data which we at
present possess, for the lands of the temperate zone in the Southern
Hemisphere, and which may be compared with the temperatures of the
Northern Hemisphere, in most parts of which the distribution into
summer heat and winter cold is so different and so much less equable. I
employ the convenient method of notation before used and explained in
pages 129-131.
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