_Uniformity of the Equatorial Climate in all Parts of the Globe._--The description of the climatal phenomena of the equatorial zone here given, has been in great part drawn from long personal experience in South America and in the Malay Archipelago. Over a large portion of these countries the same general features prevail, only modified by varying local conditions. Whether we are at Singapore or Batavia; in the Moluccas, or New Guinea; at Para, at the sources of the Rio Negro, or on the Upper Amazon, the equatorial climate is essentially the same, and we have no reason to believe that it materially differs in Guinea or the Congo. In certain localities, however, a more contrasted wet and dry season prevails, with a somewhat greater range of the thermometer. This is generally associated with a sandy soil, and a less dense forest, or with an open and more cultivated country. The open sandy country with scattered trees and shrubs or occasional thickets, which is found at Santarem and Monte-Alegre on the lower Amazon, are examples, as well as the open cultivated plains of Southern Celebes; but in both cases the forest country in adjacent districts has a moister and more uniform climate, so that it seems probable that the nature of the soil or the artificial clearing away of the forests, are important agents in producing the departure from the typical equatorial climate observed in such districts. The almost rainless district of Ceara on the North-East coast of Brazil and only a few degrees south of the equator, is a striking example of the need of vegetation to react on the rainfall. We have here no apparent cause but the sandy soil and bare hills, which when heated by the equatorial sun produce ascending currents of warm air and thus prevent the condensation of the atmospheric vapour, to account for such an anomaly; and there is probably no district where judicious planting would produce such striking and beneficial effects. In Central India the scanty and intermittent rainfall, with its fearful accompaniment of famine, is no doubt in great part due to the absence of a sufficient proportion of forest-covering to the earth’s surface; and it is to a systematic planting of all the hill tops, elevated ridges, and higher slopes that we can alone look for a radical cure of the evil. This would almost certainly induce an increased rainfall; but even more important and more certain, is the action of forests in checking evaporation from the soil and causing perennial springs to flow, which may be collected in vast storage tanks and will serve to fertilise a great extent of country; whereas tanks without regular rainfall or permanent springs to supply them are worthless. In the colder parts of the temperate zones, the absence of forests is not so much felt, because the hills and uplands are naturally clothed with a thick coating of turf which absorbs moisture and does not become overheated by the sun’s rays, and the rains are seldom violent enough to strip