The productions of this northern zone vary greatly according to elevation and exposition. Those of the Basque Provinces still belong to the north temperate zone climate--cattle, corn, and cider, as well as wine. The olive, and the mulberry for silk, are almost unknown; but maize is largely grown. As we approach Catalonia these products give way to those of the Mediterranean region of Provence and of the Riviera--the olive, the grape, the mulberry. A powerful red wine is made on the lower southern spurs of the Pyrenees and of the Cantabrian Mountains, in the Riojas, in Navarre, and in Aragon. Much of it would be excellent if more attention were paid to the preparation, and especially to the conditions of transport. Great quantities are at present exported to France by sea from Bilbao and San Sebastian, and also by rail, for the purpose of mixing with the thinner and poorer clarets of Bordeaux, to fit them for the taste and market of England. In Catalonia the wine improves, and is less used for mixing. The chief kinds are a red wine, like Rousillon, and sweet, luscious wines, Rancio, somewhat like Muscat or Malaga. Of late the manufacture of effervescing wines like champagne has been carried on with considerable success. The wine made in Catalonia amounts to one-fifth of the whole produce of Spain. Already the orange and the palm appear. Proceeding southwards from Catalonia, we gradually advance into the south-eastern and southern climate of Spain, a climate which is rather African than European in its character, and both whose products and dryness have more relation to the African continent than to that of the rest of Europe. It is here that the date-palm ripens--which it does not on the opposite coast of Algeria--and the camel breeds, and can be used as a beast of burden equally as in Egypt and the East. Sheltered by the mountain ranges to the east and north from the cold winds which sweep the plateau of Castile, exposed by the slope of the country to the full influence of the southern sun and its powerful evaporation, the characteristics of the climate are warmth and dryness, while the vicinity of the Mediterranean partly tempers the extreme range of heat and cold which might be found in lands more remote from the sea. Thus the average temperature of Valencia is 65 deg., its maximum 102 deg., its minimum 41 deg., and extreme range 100 deg.. Alicante, still further south, has an average of 66 deg., a maximum of 100 deg., and a minimum of 35 deg.. The average rainfall at Valencia is stated at 17, and that of Alicante at 18 inches; but, as remarked above, in this south-eastern district of Spain averages of rainfall are quite deceptive. In some years the quantity marked is only a very few inches, 3 or 6, over the whole district, and there are considerable portions where rain does not fall for years. The country is rendered fertile and productive, not by its rains, but by irrigation