[11] p. 6.—“A brown Pastoral Race, the Hiongnu.”
The Hiongnu (Hiong-nou), who Deguignes, and with him many historians, long considered to be the Huns, inhabited that vast region of Tartary which is bounded on the east by Uo-leang-ho (the present Mantschu dominion), on the south by the Chinese wall, on the west by the U-siün territory, and on the north by the country of the Eleuthes. But the Hiongnu belong to the Turkish, and the Huns to the Finnish or Uralian race. The northern Huns, a rude pastoral people, unacquainted with agriculture, were dark brown (sunburnt); the southern Huns or Haja-telah, (called by the Byzantines Euthalites or Nepthalites, and dwelling along the eastern shore of the Caspian), had a fairer complexion. The latter cultivated the ground, and possessed towns. They are often called the white, or fair Huns, and d’Herbelot even declares them to be Indo-Scythians. On Punu, the Leader or Tanju of the Huns, and on the great drought and famine which, about 46 A.D., caused a part of the nation to migrate northwards, (see Deguignes, Histoire gén. des Huns, des Turcs, &c., 1756, T. i. pt. i. p. 217; pt. ii. p. 111, 125, 223, 447.) All the accounts of the Huns taken from the above-mentioned celebrated work have been subjected to a learned and strict examination by Klaproth. According to the result of this research the Hiongnu belong to the widely diffused Turkish races of the Altai and Tangnu Mountains. The name Hiongnu, even in the third century before the Christian era, was a general name for the Ti, Thu-kiu or Turks, in the north and north-west of China. The southern Hiongnu overcame the Chinese, and in conjunction with them destroyed the empire of the northern Hiongnu. These latter fled to the west, and this flight seems to have given the first impulse to the migration of nations in Middle Asia. The Huns, who were long confounded with the Hiongnu, (as the Uigures with the Ugures and the Hungarians), belonged, according to Klaproth, to the Finnish race of the Ural mountains between Europe and Asia, a race which was variously mingled with Germans, Turks, and Samoieds. (Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 183 and 211; Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie, p. 102 and 109.) The Huns (Οὖννοι) are first named by Dionysius Perigetes, a writer who was able to obtain more accurate information respecting the interior of Asia, because, as a learned man born at Charax on the Arabian Gulf, Augustus had sent him back to the East to accompany thither his adopted son Caius Agrippa. Ptolemy, a century later, writes the word (Χοῦνοι) with a strong aspiration, which, as St. Martin observes, is found again in the geographical name of Chunigard.
[12] p. 7.—“No carved Stone.”
On the banks of the Orinoco near Caicara where the forest region joins the plain, we have indeed found representations of the sun, and figures of animals, cut on the rocks: but in the Llanos themselves no traces of these rude memorials of earlier inhabitants have been discovered. It is to be regretted that we have not received any more complete and certain information respecting a monument which was sent to France to Count Maurepas, and which, according to Kalm, had been found by M. de Verandrier in the Prairies of Canada 900 miles west of Montreal, in the course of an expedition intended to reach the Pacific. (Kalm’s Reise, Th. iii. S. 416.) This traveller found in the middle of the plain enormous masses of stone, placed in an upright position by the hand of man, and on one of them was something which was taken to be a Tartar inscription. (Archæologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts, published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. viii., 1787, p. 304.) How is it that so important a monument has remained unexamined? Can it really have contained alphabetical writing? or is it not far more probably a pictorial history, like the supposed Phœnician inscription on the bank of the Taunton River? I consider it, however, very probable that these plains were once traversed by civilised nations: pyramidal sepulchral mounds, and entrenchments of extraordinary length, found in various places between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, and on which Squier and Davis (in the “Ancient Monuments of the Mississipi Valley”) are now throwing a new light, appear to confirm this supposition. (Relation Hist., T. iii. p. 155.) Verandrier had been sent on his expedition by the Chevalier de Beauharnois, the French Governor-general of Canada, in 1746. Several Jesuits in the city of Quebec assured Kalm that they had themselves had the supposed inscription in their hands: it was engraved upon a small tablet which had been let into a pillar of cut stone, in which position it was found. I have asked several of my friends in France to search out this monument, in case it should really be in existence in the collection of Count Maurepas, but without success. I find older, but equally doubtful, statements as to the existence of alphabetical inscriptions belonging to the primitive nations of America, in Pedro de Cieça de Leon, Chronica del Peru, P. i. cap. 87 (losa con letras en los edificios de Vinaque); in Garcia, Origen de los Indios, 1607, lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 258; and in Columbus’s Journal of his first voyage, in Navarrete, Viages de los Espanoles, T. i. p. 67. M. de Verandrier moreover affirmed, (and earlier travellers had also thought they had observed the same thing), that in the prairies of Western Canada, throughout entire days’ journeys, traces of the ploughshare were discoverable; but the total ignorance of the primitive nations of America with regard to this agricultural implement, the want of draft cattle, and the great extent of ground over which the supposed furrows are found,—all lead me to conjecture that this singular appearance of a ploughed field has been produced by some effect of water on the surface of the earth.
[13] p. 7.—“Like an arm of the Sea.”
The great Steppe, which extends from east to west from the mouth of the Orinoco to the snowy mountains of Merida, turns to the south in the 8th degree of latitude, filling the space between the eastern declivity of the high mountains of New Granada, and the Orinoco, the course of which is, in this part, from south to north. This latter portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, the Vichada, the Zama, and the Guaviare, connects the valley of the Amazons with the valley of the Lower Orinoco. The word Paramo, which I often employ in these pages, signifies in Spanish America all those mountainous regions which are elevated from 1800 to 2200 toises above the level of the sea (11500 to 14000 English feet in round numbers), and in which an ungenial, rough, and misty climate prevails. Hail and snow fall daily for several hours in the upper Paramos, and furnish a beneficial supply of moisture to the alpine plants; a supply not arising from a large absolute quantity of aqueous vapour in these high regions, but from the frequency of showers, (hail and snow being so termed as well as rain), produced by the rapidly changing currents of air, and the variations of the electric tension. The arborescent vegetation of these regions is low and spreading, consisting chiefly of large flowering laurels and myrtle-leaved alpine shrubs, whose knotty branches are adorned with fresh and evergreen foliage. Escallonia tubar, Escallonia myrtilloides, Chuquiragua insignis, Aralias, Weinmannias, Frezieras, Gualtherias, and Andromeda reticulata, may be regarded as representatives of the physiognomy of this vegetation. To the south of the town of Santa Fé de Bogota is the Paramo de la Suma Paz; a lonely mountain group, in which, according to Indian tradition, vast treasures are buried. The torrent which flows under the remarkable natural bridge of the rocky ravine of Icononzo rises in this Paramo. In my Latin memoir entitled “De distributione geographica Plantarum secundem cœli temperiem et altitudinem montium, 1817,” I have sought to characterise those mountain regions: “Altitudine 1700–1900 hexapod. Asperrimæ solitudines, quæ a colonis hispanis uno nomine Paramos appellantur, tempestatum vicissitudinibus mire obnoxiæ, ad quas solutæ et emollitæ defluunt nives; ventorum flatibus ac nimborum grandinisque jactu tumultuosa regio, quæ æque per diem et per noctes riget, solis nubila et tristi luce fere nunquam calefacta. Habitantur in hac ipsa altitudine sat magnæ civitates, ut Micuipampa Peruvianorum, ubi thermometrum centes. meridie inter 5° et 8°, noctu—0°.4 consistere vidi; Huancavelica, propter cinnabaris venas celebrata, ubi altitudine 1835 hexap. fere totum per annum temperies mensis Martii Parisiis.” (Humboldt de distrib. geogr. Plant, p. 104.)
[14] p. 8.—“The Andes and the eastern mountains send forth detached spurs which advance towards each other.”
The vast region situated between the eastern coast of South America and the eastern declivity of the Andes is narrowed by two mountain masses, which partially divide from each other the three valleys or plains of the Lower Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the River Plate. The most northern mountains, called the group of the Parime, are opposite to the Andes of Cundinamarca which project far to the east, and assume in the 66th and 68th degrees of longitude the form of high mountains, connected by the narrow ridge of Pacaraima with the granite hills of French Guiana. On the map of Columbia constructed by me from my own astronomical observations, this connection is clearly marked. The Caribs, who penetrated from the missions of the Caroni to the plains of the Rio Branco, and as far as the Brazilian boundary, crossed in the journey the ridges of Pacaraima and Quimiropaca. The second mountain mass, which divides the valley of the Amazons from the River Plate, is the Brazilian group. In the province of Chiquitos (west of the Parecis range of hills), it approaches the promontory of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. As neither the group of the Parime which causes the great cataracts of the Orinoco, nor the Brazilian group of mountains, are absolutely connected with the Andes, the plains of Venezuela have a direct connection with those of Patagonia. (See my geognostical view of South America, in Relat. Hist. T. iii. p. 188–244.)
[15] p. 8.—“Troops of dogs.”
European dogs have become wild in the grassy plains or Pampas of Buenos Ayres. They live in society, and in hollows in which they hide their young. If the society becomes too numerous, some families detach themselves and form new colonies. The European dog, which has become wild, barks as loud as the original American hairy race. Garcilaso relates, that before the arrival of the Spaniards the Peruvians had dogs, “perros gozques.” He calls the native dog, Allco: it is called at present in the Quichua language, to distinguish him from the European dog, “Runa-allco,” “Indian dog” (dog of the inhabitants of the country). The hairy Runa-allco seems to be a mere variety of the shepherd’s dog. He is small, with long hair, (usually of an ochry yellow, with white and brown spots,) and with upright sharp-pointed ears. He barks a great deal, but seldom bites the natives, however disposed to be mischievous to the whites. When the Inca Pachacutec, in his religious wars with the Indians of Xauxa and Huanca (the present valley of Huancaya and Jauja), conquered them, and converted them forcibly to the worship of the sun, he found them paying divine honours to dogs. Priests blew on the skulls of dogs, and the worshippers ate their flesh. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Commentarios Reales, P. i. p. 184.) This veneration of dogs in the valley of Huancaya is probably the reason why skulls and even entire mummies of dogs have been found in the Huacas, or Peruvian graves belonging to the earliest epoch. Von Tschudi, the author of an excellent Fauna Peruviana, has examined these skulls, and believes them to belong to a peculiar species of dog which he calls Canis ingæ, and which is different from the European dog. The Huancas are still called derisively by the inhabitants of other provinces, “dog-eaters.” Among the natives of the Rocky Mountains, cooked dog’s flesh is set before strangers as a feast of honour. Near Fort Laramie, (one of the stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company for the fur trade with the Sioux Indians), Captain Frémont attended a feast of this description. (Frémont’s Exploring Expedition, 1845, p. 42.)
The Peruvian dogs had a singular part to play in eclipses of the moon: they were beaten until the eclipse was over. The Mexican Techichi, a variety of the common dog, which latter was called in Anahuac Chichi, was completely dumb. Techichi signifies literally stone-dog, from the Aztec, Tetl, a stone. The Techichi was eaten according to the old Chinese fashion. The Spaniards found this food, before the introduction of European cattle, so indispensable, that almost the whole race was gradually extirpated. (Clavigero, Storia antica del Messico, 1780, T. i. p. 73.) Buffon confounds the Techichi with the Koupara of Guiana. (T. xv. p. 155.) The latter is identical with the Procyon or Ursus cancrivorus, the Raton crabier, or crab-eating Aquaraguaza of the Patagonian coast. (Azara sur les quadrupèdes du Paraguay, T. i. p. 315.) Linnæus, on the other hand, confounds the dumb variety of dogs with the Mexican Itzcuintepotzotli, a kind of dog still only imperfectly described, said to be distinguished by a short tail, a very small head, and a large hump on the back. The name signifies humped-dog, and is formed from the Aztec, itzcuintli (another word for dog), and tepotzotli, humped, a humpback. I was particularly struck in America, and especially in Quito and generally in Peru, with the great number of black dogs without hair, called by Buffon “chiens turcs” (Canis ægyptius, Linn.) Even among the Indians this variety is common, but it is generally despised and ill-treated. All European breeds of dogs perpetuate themselves very well in South America, and if the dogs there are not so handsome as those in Europe, the reason is partly want of care, and partly that the handsomest varieties (such as fine greyhounds and the Danish spotted breed) have never been introduced there.
Herr von Tschudi makes the singular remark, that in the Cordilleras, at elevations of 13000 feet, tender races of dogs and the European domestic cat are exposed to a particular kind of mortal disease. “Innumerable attempts have been made to keep cats as domestic animals in the town of the Cerro de Pasco, 13228 French (or 14100 English) feet above the level of the sea, but such attempts have failed, both cats and dogs dying at the end of a few days in fits, in which the cats were taken at first with convulsive movements, then tried to climb the walls, fell back exhausted and motionless, and died. In Yauli I had several opportunities of observing this chorea-like disease; it seems to be a consequence of the absence of sufficient atmospheric pressure.” In the Spanish colonies, the hairless dog was looked upon as of Chinese origin, and called Perro Chinesco, or Chino. The race was supposed to have come from Canton or from Manila: according to Klaproth, it has certainly been extremely common in China since very early times. Among the animals indigenous to Mexico there was an entirely hairless, dog-like, but very large wolf, called Xoloitzcuintli (from the Mexican xolo or xolotl, servant or slave). On American dogs, see Smith Barton’s Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania, P. i. p. 34.
The result of Tschudi’s researches on the American indigenous races of dogs is the following. There are two kinds almost specifically different: 1. The Canis caraibicus of Lesson, quite without hair, except a small bunch of white hair on the forehead and at the point of the tail, of a slate grey colour, and silent; it was found by Columbus in the Antilles, by Cortes in Mexico, and by Pizarro in Peru, where it suffers from the cold of the Cordilleras, but is still abundant in the warmer parts of the country, under the name of perros chinos. 2. The Canis ingæ, with pointed nose and pointed ears; this kind barks: it is now employed in the care of cattle, and shews many varieties of colours, from being crossed with European breeds. The Canis ingæ follows man to the high regions of the Cordilleras. In ancient Peruvian graves his skeleton is sometimes found resting at the feet of the human mummy. We know how often the carvers of monuments in our own middle ages employed the figure of a dog in this position, as an emblem of fidelity. (J. J. v. Tschudi, Untersuchungen über die Fauna Peruana, S. 247–251.) At the very beginning of the Spanish conquests European dogs became wild in the islands of San Domingo and Cuba. (Garcilaso, P. i. 1723, p. 326.) In the prairies between the Meta, the Arauca, and the Apure, voiceless dogs, (perros mudos,) were eaten in the 16th century. Alonso de Herrara, who, in 1535, undertook an expedition to the Orinoco, says the natives called them “Majos” or “Auries.” A well-informed traveller, Giesecke, found the same non-barking variety of dog in Greenland. The Esquimaux dogs pass their lives entirely in the open air; at night they scrape holes for themselves in the snow; they howl like wolves, in accompaniment with a dog that sits in the middle of the circle and sets them off. In Mexico the dogs were subjected to an operation to make them fatter and better eating. On the borders of the province of Durango, and farther to the north on the slave lake, the natives, formerly at least, conveyed their tents of buffalo skins on the backs of large dogs when changing their place of residence with the change of season. All these traits resemble the customs of the inhabitants of eastern Asia. (Humboldt, Essai polit. T. ii. p. 448; Relation hist. T. ii. p. 625.)
[16] p. 8.—“Like the greater part of the Desert of Sahara, the Llanos are in the torrid zone.”
Significant denominations,—particularly such as refer to the form in relief of the earth’s surface, and which have arisen at a period when there was only very uncertain information respecting the countries in question and their hypsometric relations,—have led to various and long-continued geographical errors. The ancient denomination of the “Greater and Lesser Atlas” (Ptol. Geogr. lib. iii. cap. 1) has exercised the prejudicial influence here alluded to. No doubt the snow-covered western summits of the Atlas in the territory of Morocco may be regarded as the Great Atlas of Ptolemy; but where is the limit of the Little Atlas? Is the division into two Atlas chains, which the conservative tendencies of geographers have preserved for 1700 years, to be still maintained in the territory of Algiers, and even between Tunis and Tlemse? Are we to seek between the coast and the interior for parallel chains constituting a greater and a lesser Atlas? All travellers familiar with geognostical views, who have visited Algeria since it has been taken possession of by the French, contest the meaning conveyed by the generally received nomenclature. Among the parallel chains, that of Jurjura is generally supposed to be the highest of those which have been measured; but the well-informed Fournel, (long Ingenieur en chef des Mines de l’Algérie), affirms that the mountains of Aurès, near Batnah, which were still found covered with snow at the end of March, are higher. Fournel denies the existence of a Little and a Great Atlas, as I do that of a Little and a Great Altai (Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 247–252). There is only one Atlas, formerly called Dyris by the Mauritanians, and this name is to be applied to the “foldings,” (“rides”) or succession of crests which form the division between the waters flowing to the Mediterranean, and those which flow towards the Sahara lowland. The strike or direction of the Eastern Mauritanian portion of the Atlas is from east to west; that of the elevated Atlas of Morocco from north-east to south-west. The latter rises into summits which, according to Renou, (Exploration Scientifique de l’Algérie de 1840 à 1842, publiée par ordre du Gouvernement, Sciences Hist. et Geogr. T. viii. 1846, p. 364 and 373), attain an elevation of 10,700 Fr. (11400 Eng.) feet; exceeding, therefore, the height of Etna. A singularly formed highland of an almost square shape, (Sahab el Marga), bounded on the south by higher elevations, is situated in 33° lat. From thence towards the sea to the west, about a degree south of Mogador, the Atlas declines in height: this south-westernmost part bears the name of Idrar-N-Deren.
The northern Mauritanian boundaries of the widely extended low region of the Sahara, as well as its southern limits towards the fertile Soudan, are still but little known. If we take on a mean estimation the parallels of 16½° and 32½° as the outside limits, we obtain for the Desert, including its Oases, an area of more than 118500 square German geographical miles; or between nine and ten times the area of Germany, and almost three times that of the Mediterranean exclusive of the Black Sea. From the best and most recent intelligence, for which we are indebted to the French Colonel Daumas and MM. Fournel, Renou, and Carette, we learn that the desert of Sahara is composed of several detached basins, and that the number and the population of the fertile Oases is very much greater than had been imagined from the awfully desert character of the route between Insalah and Timbuctoo, and that from Mourzouk in Fezzan, to Bilma, Tirtuma, and Lake Tschad. It is now generally affirmed that the sand covers only the smaller portion of the great lowland. A similar opinion had been previously propounded by the acutely observant Ehrenberg, my Siberian travelling companion, from what he had himself seen (Exploration Scientifique de l’Algérie, Hist. et Geogr. T. ii. p. 332). Of larger wild animals, only gazelles, wild asses, and ostriches are to be met with. “Le lion du désert,” says M. Carette, (Explor. de l’Alg. T. ii. p. 126–129; T. vii. p. 94 and 97), “est un mythe popularisé par les artistes et les poètes. Il n’existe que dans leur imagination. Cet animal ne sort pas de sa montagne où il trouve de quoi se loger, s’abreuver et se nourrir. Quand on parle aux habitans du désert de ces bêtes féroces que les Européens leur donnent pour compagnons, ils repondent avec un imperturbable sang froid, il y a donc chez vous des lions qui boivent de l’air et broutent des feuilles? Chez nous il faut aux lions de l’eau courante et de la chair vive. Aussi des lions ne paraissent dans le Zahara que là où il y a des collines boisées et de l’eau. Nous ne craignons que la vipère (lefa) et d’innombrables essaims de moustiques, ces derniers là où il y a quelque humidité.”
Whereas Dr. Oudney, in the course of the long journey from Tripoli to Lake Tschad, estimated the elevation of the southern Sahara at 1637 English feet, to which German geographers have even ventured to add an additional thousand feet, the Ingenieur Fournel has, by careful barometric measurements based on corresponding observations, made it tolerably probable that a part of the northern desert is below the level of the sea. That portion of the desert which is now called “le Zahara d’Algérie” advances to the chains of hills of Metlili and el-Gaous, where the northernmost of all the Oases,—that of el-Kantara, fruitful in dates,—is situated. This low basin, which touches the parallel of 34° lat., receives the radiant heat of a stratum of chalk, (full of the shells of Inoceramus), inclined at an angle of 65° towards the south (Fournel sur les Gisemens de Muriate de Soude en Algérie, p. 6 in the Annales des Mines, 4me Série, T. ix., 1846, p. 546). “Arrivés a Biscara,” (Biskra), says Fournel, “un horizon indéfini comme celui de la mer se déroulait devant nous.” Between Biscara and Sidi Ocba the ground is only 228 (243 Eng.) feet above the level of the sea. The inclination increases considerably towards the south. In another work, (Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 320), where I have brought together everything relating to the depression of some portions of continents below the level of the sea, I have already noticed that according to Le Père the “bitter lakes” on the isthmus of Suez, when they have a little water,—and, according to General Andréossy, the Natron lakes of Fayoum,—are also lower than the level of the Mediterranean.
Among other manuscript notices of M. Fournel, I possess a vertical geological profile, which gives all the inflexions and inclinations of the strata, representing a section of the surface the whole way from Philippeville on the coast to the Desert of Sahara, at a spot not far from the Oasis of Biscara. The direction of the line on which the barometric measurements were taken is south 20° west; but the elevations determined are projected, as in my Mexican profiles, on a different plane,—a north-south one. Ascending uninterruptedly from Constantine, at an elevation of 332 toises (2122 Eng. feet), the culminating point is found between Batnah and Tizur, at an elevation of only 560 toises (3580 Eng. feet). In the part of the desert situated between Biscara and Tuggurt, Fournel has had a series of Artesian wells dug with success (Comptes Rendus de l’Acad. des Sciences, t. xx. 1845, p. 170, 882, and 1305). We learn from the old accounts of Shaw, that the inhabitants of the country knew of a subterranean supply of water, and relate fabulous tales of a “sea under the earth (bahr tôht el-erd).” Fresh waters flowing between clay and marl strata of the old cretaceous and other sedimentary deposits, under the action of hydrostatic pressure form gushing fountains when the strata are pierced (Shaw, Voyages dans plusieurs parties de la Berbérie, t. i. p. 169; Rennell, Africa, Append. p. lxxxv). That fresh water in this part of the world should often be found near beds of rock salt, need not surprise geologists acquainted with mines, since Europe offers many analogous phenomena.
The riches of the desert in rock-salt, and the fact of rock-salt having been used in building, have been known since the time of Herodotus. The salt zone of the Sahara (zone salifère du désert), is the southernmost of three zones, stretching across Northern Africa from south-west to north-east, and believed to be connected with the beds or deposits of rock-salt of Sicily and Palestine, described by Friedrich Hoffman and by Robinson. (Fournel, sur les Gisements de Muriate de Soude en Algérie, p. 28–41; Karsten über das Vorkommen des Kochsalzes auf der Oberfläche der Erde, 1846, S. 497, 648, and 741.) The trade in salt with Soudan, and the possibility of cultivating dates in the Oases, formed by depressions caused probably by falls or subsidences of the earth in the gypsum beds of the tertiary cretaceous or keuper promotions, have alike contributed to enliven the Desert, at least to some extent, by human intercourse. The high temperature of the air, which makes the day’s march so oppressive, renders the coldness of the nights, (of which Denham complained so often in the African Desert, and Sir Alexander Burnes in the Asiatic), so much the more striking. Melloni, (Memoria sull’ abassamento di temperatura durante le notti placide e serene, 1847, p. 55), ascribes this cold, produced doubtless by the radiation from the ground, less to the great purity and serenity of the sky, (irrigiamento calorifico per la grande serenità di cielo nell’ immensa e deserta pianura dell’ Africa centrale), than to the profound calm, the nightly absence of all movement in the atmosphere. (Consult also, respecting African meteorology, Aimé in the Exploration de l’Algérie, Physique génerale, T. ii., 1846, p. 147.)
The southern declivity of the Atlas of Morocco sends to the Sahara, in lat. 32°, a river, the Quad-Dra (Wady-Dra), which for the greater part of the year is nearly dry, and which Renou (Explor. de l’Alg. Hist. et Geogr., T. viii. p. 65–78) considers to be a sixth longer than the Rhine. It flows at first from north to south, until, in lat. 29° N. and long. 5° W., it turns almost at right angles to its former course, runs to the west, and, after passing through the great fresh water Lake of Debaid, enters the sea at Cape Nun, in lat. 28° 46′ N. and long. 11° 08′ W. This region, which was so celebrated formerly in the history of the Portuguese discoveries of the 15th century, and was afterwards wrapped in profound geographical obscurity, is now called on the coast “the country of the Sheikh Beirouk,” (a chief independent of the Emperor of Morocco.) It was explored in the months of July and August 1840, by Captain Count Bouet-Villaumez of the French Navy, by order of his government. From the official Reports and Surveys which have been communicated to me in manuscript, it appears evident that the mouth of the Quad-Dra is at present very much stopped up with sand, having an open channel of only about 190 English feet wide. A somewhat more easterly channel in the same mouth is that of the still very little known Saguiel el-Hamra, which comes from the south, and is supposed to have a course of at least 600 geographical miles. One is astonished at the length of these deep, but commonly dry river beds. They are ancient furrows, such as I have seen in the Peruvian desert at the foot of the Cordilleras, between those mountains and the coast of the Pacific. In Bouet’s manuscript “Relation de l’Expédition de la Malouine,” the mountains which rise to the north of Cape Nun are estimated at the great elevation of 2800 metres (9185 English feet).
Cape Nun is usually supposed to have been discovered in 1433, by the Knight Gilianez, acting under the command of the celebrated Infante Henry Duke of Viseo, and founder of the Academy of Sagres, which was presided over by the pilot and cosmographer Mestre Jacomè of Majorca; but the Portulano Mediceo, the work of a Genoese Navigator in 1351, already contains the name of Cavo di Non. The passage round this Cape was then as much dreaded as that of Cape Horn has since been, although it is 23′ north of the parallel of Teneriffe, and could be reached in a few days’ voyage from Cadiz. The Portuguese proverb, “quem passa o Cabo di Num, ou tornarà ou não,” could not deter the Infante, whose heraldic French motto, “talent de bien faire,” expressed his noble, enterprising, and vigorous character. The name of the Cape, in which a play of words on the negative particle has long been supposed, does not appear to me to have had a Portuguese origin. Ptolemy placed on the north-west coast of Africa a river Nuius, in the Latin version Nunii Ostia. Edrisi speaks of a town, Nul, or Wadi Nun, somewhat more to the south, and three days’ journey in the interior: Leo Africanus calls it Belad de Non. Long before the Portuguese squadron of Gilianez, other European navigators had advanced much beyond, or to the southward of, this Cape. The Catalan, Don Jayme Ferrer, in 1346, as we learn from the Atlas Catalan published by Buchon at Paris, had advanced as far as the Gold River, (Rio do Ouro), in lat. 23° 56′; and Normans, at the end of the 14th century, as far as Sierra Leone in lat. 8° 30′. The merit of having been the first to cross the equator on the western coast of Africa belongs, however, like that of so many other memorable achievements, to the Portuguese.
[17] p. 8.—“As a grassy plain, resembling many of the Steppes of Central Asia.”
The Llanos of Caraccas and of the Rio Apure and the Meta, over which roam large herds of cattle, are, in the strictest sense of the term, “grassy plains.” Their prevalent vegetation, belonging to the two families of Cyperaceæ and Gramineæ, consists of various species of Paspalum, P. leptostachyum and P. lenticulare; of Kyllingia, K. monocephala (Rottb.), K. odorata; of Panicum, P. granuliferum, P. micranthum; of Antephora; Aristida; Vilfa; and Anthistiria, A. reflexa, and A. foliosa. Only here and there are found, interspersed among the Gramineæ, a few herbaceous dicotyledonous plants, consisting of two very low-growing species of Mimosa, (Sensitive Plant), Mimosa intermedia, and Mimosa dormiens, which are great favourites with the wild horses and cattle. The natives give to this group of plants, which close their delicate feathery leaves on being touched, the expressive name of Dormideras—sleepy plants. For many square miles not a tree is seen; but where solitary trees are found, they are, in moist places, the Mauritia Palm; in arid districts, a Proteacea, described by Bonpland and myself, the Rhopala complicata (Chaparro bobo), which Wildenow regarded as an Embothrium; also the highly useful Palma de Covija, or de Sombrero; and our Corypha inermis, an umbrella palm allied to Chamærops, which is used to cover the roofs of huts. How far more varied is the aspect of the Asiatic plains! Throughout a large portion of the Kirghis and Calmuck Steppes, which I have traversed from the Don, the Caspian, and the Orenburg Ural river the Jaik, to the Obi and the Upper Irtysh near Lake Dsaisang, through a space of 40 degrees of longitude, I have never seen, as in the Llanos, the Pampas, and the Prairies, an horizon like that of the ocean, where the vault of heaven appears to rest on the unbroken plain. At the utmost this appearance presented itself in one direction, or towards one quarter of the heavens. The Asiatic Steppes are often crossed by ranges of hills, or clothed with coniferous woods or forests. Even in the most fruitful pastures the vegetation is by no means limited to grasses; there is a great variety of herbaceous plants and shrubs. In spring-time small snow-white and red-flowering rosaceæ and amygdaleæ (Spiræa, Cratægus, Prunus spinosa, and Amygdalus nana) present a smiling aspect. I have already mentioned the tall and luxuriant Synantheræ (Saussurea amara, S. salsa, Artemisias, and Centaureas), and of leguminous plants, species of Astragalus, Cytisus, and Caragana. Crown Imperials, (Fritillaria ruthenica, and F. meleagroides), Cypripedias, and tulips, rejoice the eye by the bright variety of their colours.
A contrast to the pleasing vegetation of these Asiatic plains is presented by the desolate salt Steppes, particularly by the part of the Barabinski Steppe which is at the foot of the Altai mountains, and by the Steppes between Barnaul and the Serpent Mountain and the country on the east of the Caspian. Here Chenopodias, some species of Salsola and Atriplex, Salicornias and Halimocnemis crassifolia, (each species growing “socially”), form patches of vegetation on the muddy ground. See Göbel’s Journey in the Steppes of the South of Russia (Reise in die Steppe des südlichen Russlands, 1838, Th. ii. S. 244 and 301). Of the 500 phanerogamous species which Claus and Göbel collected in the Steppes, the Syrantheræ, the Chenopodeæ, and the Cruciferæ, were more numerous than the grasses; the latter being only 1⁄11 of the whole, and the former 1⁄7th and 1⁄9th. In Germany, from the mixture of hill and plain districts, the Glumaceæ (i. e. the Gramineæ, Cyperaceæ, and Juncaceæ collectively), form 1⁄7th; the Synantheræ or Compositæ 1⁄8th; and the Cruciferæ 1⁄18th of all our German phanerogamia. In the most northern parts of the flat Siberian lowlands, the fine map of Admiral Wrangell shews that the extreme northern limit of tree and shrub vegetation (Coniferæ and Amentaceæ) is, in the portion towards the Behring’s Straits side, in 67¼° lat.; and more to the west, towards the banks of the Lena, in 71°, which is the parallel of the north cape of Lapland. The plains which border the Icy Sea are the domain of cryptogamous plants. They are called Tundras (Tuntur in Finnish): they are swampy districts extending farther than the eye can reach, partly covered with a thick carpet of Sphagnum palustre and other mosses, and partly with a dry snow-white covering of Cenomyce rangiferina (Rein-deer moss), Stereocaulon paschale, and other lichens. Admiral Wrangell, in describing his perilous expedition to the new Siberian islands so rich in fossil wood, says: “These Tundras accompanied me to the extreme arctic coast. Their soil has been frozen for thousands of years. In the dreary uniformity of landscape, the eye of the traveller, surrounded by rein-deer moss, dwells with pleasure on the smallest patch of green turf showing itself now and then on a moist spot.”
[18] p. 8.—“The causes which lessen both heat and dryness in the New World.”
I have tried to bring together in a brief and compendious manner the various causes which produce greater moisture and a less degree of heat in America; it will of course be understood that the question respects the general hygrometric state of the atmosphere, and the temperature of the New Continent as a whole. Single districts, such as the island of Margarita, the Coasts of Cumana and Coro, are as hot and as dry as any part of Africa. It must also be remarked that the maximum of heat at certain hours of a summer’s day has been found, on a series of years, to be almost equal at very different parts of the earth’s surface, on the Neva, the Senegal, the Ganges, and the Orinoco; being approximately between 27° and 32° Reaumur (93° and 104° Fahrenheit), and generally not higher,—providing the observation be made in the shade, at a distance from all solid bodies which could radiate heat to the thermometer, not in an air filled with hot particles of dust or sand, and not with spirit thermometers, which absorb the light. It is probably to fine grains of sand floating in the air, and forming centres of radiant heat, that we must ascribe the dreadful temperature of 40° to 44°.8 Reaumur (122° to 133° Fah.) in the shade, to which my unhappy friend Ritchie, who perished there, and Captain Lyon, were exposed for weeks in the Oasis of Mourzouk. The most remarkable instance of very high temperature, in an air probably free from dust, has been recorded by an observer who knew well how to place and to correct all his instruments with the greatest degree of accuracy. Rüppell found 37°.6 Reaumur, (110°.6 Fahrenheit,) at Ambukol in Abyssinia, with a clouded sky, strong south-west wind, and an approaching thunderstorm. The mean annual temperature of the tropics, or of the proper climate of palms, is, on land, between 20°.5 and 23°.8 Reaumur (or 78°.2 and 85°.5 Fahrenheit) without any considerable difference between the observations collected in Senegal, Pondichery, and Surinam. (Humboldt, Mémoire sur les lignes isothermes, 1817, p. 54. Asie Centrale, T. iii. Mahlmann, Table iv.)
The great coolness, I might almost say cold, which prevails for a considerable part of the year within the tropics on the coast of Peru, causing the thermometer to sink to 12° Reaumur (59° Fahrenheit), is, as I have noticed elsewhere, by no means to be ascribed to the vicinity of the snow-covered Andes, but rather to the fogs (garua) which veil the solar disk, and to a cold sea current which, commencing in the antarctic regions and coming from the south-west, strikes the coast of Chili near Valdivia and Conçeption, and thence streams rapidly along the coast to the northward, as far as Cape Pariña. On the coast, near Lima, the temperature of the Pacific is 12°.5 Reaumur (60°.2 Fahr.), whilst in the same latitude out of the current it is 21° R. (79°.2 Fahr.) It is singular that so striking a fact should have remained unnoticed until my visit to the shores of the Pacific, in October 1802.
The variations of temperature of different regions depend in a great degree on the character of the bottom of the “aerial ocean,” or on the nature of the floor or base, whether land or sea, continental or oceanic, on which the atmosphere rests. Seas, often traversed by currents of warmer or colder water, (oceanic rivers), have an effect very different from that of continental masses, whether unbroken or articulated, or of islands, which latter may be regarded as shallows in the aerial ocean, and which, notwithstanding their small dimensions, exert, often to a great distance, a notable influence on the climate of the sea. In continental masses we must distinguish between sandy deserts devoid of vegetation, savannahs or grassy plains, and forest-covered districts. In Upper Egypt and in South America, Nouet in the former, and myself in the latter, found respectively at noon the temperature of the ground composed of granitic sand 54°.2 and 48°.4 Reaumur (154° and 141° Fahr.) Many careful observations in Paris have given, according to Arago, 40° and 42° Reaumur, 122° and 126°.5 Fahrenheit. (Asie Centrale, T. iii. p. 176.) The Savannahs, which between the Missouri and the Mississipi are called Prairies, and which appear in South America as the Llanos of Venezuela and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, are covered with small monocotyledonous plants of the family of Cyperaceæ, and with grasses of which the thin pointed stalks or ears, and the delicate lanceolate leaves or blades, radiate towards the unclouded sky, and possess an extraordinary power of “emission.” Wells and Daniell (Meteor. Essays, 1827, p. 230 and 278) have even seen in our latitude, where the atmosphere has so much less transparency, the thermometer sink 6°.5 or 8° of Reaumur (14°.5 or 18° Fahrenheit), on being placed on the grass. Melloni, in a memoir, “Sull abassamento di temperatura durante le notti placide e serene,” 1847, p. 47 and 53, has shewn how in a calm state of the atmosphere, which is a necessary condition of strong radiation and of the formation of dew, the cooling of the grassy surface is also promoted by the particles of air which are already cooled sinking to the ground as being the heaviest. In the vicinity of the equator, under the clouded sky of the Upper Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and the Amazons River, the plains are clothed with dense primeval forests; but to the north and south of this wooded region there extend from the zone of palms and lofty dicotyledonous trees, in the northern hemisphere, the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco the Meta and the Guaviare, and in the southern hemisphere the Pampas of the Rio de la Plata and of Patagonia. The space thus occupied by Savannahs or grassy plains in South America is at least nine times as great as the area of France.
The wooded region acts in a threefold manner in diminishing the temperature by cooling shade, by evaporation, and by radiation. Forests,—which in our temperate zone consist of trees living together in “society,” i. e., many individuals of one, or of a few kinds, of the families of Coniferæ or Amentaceæ, oaks, beeches, and birches, but in the tropics, of an immense variety of trees living separately or “unsocially,”—protect the ground from the direct rays of the sun, evaporate fluids elaborated by the trees themselves, and cool the strata of air in immediate contact with them by the radiation of heat from their appendicular organs or leaves. The latter are far from being all parallel with each other; they are, on the contrary, variously inclined to the horizon, and, according to the law developed by Leslie and Fourier, the influence of this inclination upon the quantity of heat emitted by radiation is such, that the power of radiation (pouvoir rayonnant) of a measured surface a, having a given oblique direction, is equal to the “pouvoir rayonnant” which would belong to a surface of the size of a, projected on a horizontal plane. Now in the initial condition of radiation, of all the leaves which form the summit of a tree and partly cover each other, those are first cooled which are directed without any intervening screen towards the unclouded sky. The cooling result (or the exhaustion of heat by emission) will be the more considerable the greater the thinness of the leaves. A second stratum of leaves has its upper surface turned to the under surface of the first stratum, and will give out more heat by radiation towards that stratum than it can receive by radiation from it. The result of this unequal exchange will thus be a loss of temperature for the second stratum of leaves also. A similar operation will continue from stratum to stratum until all the leaves of the tree, by greater or less radiation as modified by their diversity of position, have passed into a state of stable equilibrium of which the law can be deduced by mathematical analysis. In this manner, in the long and clear nights of the equinoctial zone, the forest air contained in the intervals between the strata of leaves becomes cooled by the process of radiation; and by reason of the great quantity of its thin appendicular organs or leaves, a tree, the horizontal section of whose summit would measure for example 2000 square feet, would act in diminishing the temperature of the air equivalently to a space of bare or turf-covered ground several thousand times greater than 2000 square feet (Asie Centrale, T. iii. p. 195–205). I have sought thus to develop in detail the complicated effects which make up the total action of extensive forests upon the atmosphere, because they have been so often touched upon in reference to the important question concerning the climates of ancient Germany and Gaul.
As in the old continent European civilization has had its principal seats on a western coast, it could not but be early remarked that, under equal degrees of latitude, the opposite eastern coast of the United States was several degrees colder in mean annual temperature than Europe, which is, as it were, a projecting western peninsula to Asia, as Brittany is to the rest of France. But in this remark it was forgotten that these differences decrease from the higher to the lower latitudes in such manner that they almost entirely disappear from 30° downwards. For the west coast of the new continent, exact thermometric observations are still almost entirely wanting; but the mildness of the winters in New California shews that the west coasts of America and Europe, under the same parallels of latitude, probably differ little from each other in mean annual temperature. The subjoined table shows what are the corresponding mean annual temperatures, in the same geographical latitudes, of the west coast of Europe and the east coast of the New Continent.
| Similar degrees of latitude. | East Coast of America. | West Coast of Europe. | Reaumur. | Fahrenheit. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean temperature of the year, of winter, and of summer. | Differences of annual temperature of East coast of America and West coast of Europe. | Mean temperature of the year, of winter, and of summer. | Differences of annual temperature of East coast of America and West coast of Europe. | |||||
| 57° 10′ | Nain | -2°.8 | -14°.4 | 9°.2 | 25°.8 | -0°.5 | 20°.7 | |
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 6°.1 | 45°.8 | |||||||
| 57° 41′ | Gottenburg | 6°.4 | -0°.2 | 46°.4 | -31°.5 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 13°.5 | 62°.4 | |||||||
| 47° 34′ | St. John’s | 2°.7 | -4°.0 | 5°.8 | 38°.0 | 23°.0 | 13°.0 | |
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 9°.8 | 54°.0 | |||||||
| 47° 30′ | Ofen (or Buda) | 8°.2 | -0°.4 | 50°.5 | 31°.0 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 16°.8 | 69°.8 | |||||||
| 48° 50′ | Paris | 8°.7 | 2°.6 | 51°.6 | 37°.8 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 14°.5 | 64°.6 | |||||||
| 44° 39′ | Halifax | 5°.1 | -3°.5 | 6°.1 | 43°.5 | 24°.2 | 13°.7 | |
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 13°.8 | 63°.0 | |||||||
| 44° 50′ | Bordeaux | 11°.2 | 4°.8 | 57°.2 | 42°.8 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 17°.4 | 71°.2 | |||||||
| 40° 43′ | New York | 9°.1 | 0°.1 | 3°.4 | 52°.5 | 32°.2 | 8.0 | |
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 18°.2 | 73°.0 | |||||||
| 39° 57′ | Philadelphia | 9°.0 | 0°.1 | 52°.2 | 32°.2 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 18°.1 | 72°.8 | |||||||
| 38° 53′ | Washington | 10°.2 | 1°.8 | 55°.0 | 36°.0 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 17°.4 | 71°.2 | |||||||
| 40° 51′ | Naples | 12°.9 | 7°.8 | 61°.0 | 49°.5 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 19°.1 | 75°.0 | |||||||
| 38° 52′ | Lisbon | 13°.1 | 9°.0 | 61°.5 | 52°.2 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 17°.4 | 71°.2 | |||||||
| 29° 48′ | St. Augustin | 17°.9 | 12°.2 | 0.2 | 72°.2 | 59°.5 | 0°.4 | |
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 22°.0 | 81°.5 | |||||||
| 30° 2′ | Cairo | 17°.7 | 11°.8 | 71°.8 | 58°.5 | |||
| —— | —— | |||||||
| 23°.4 | 84°.7 | |||||||
In the column of temperatures in the preceding table the first number represents the temperature of the year; that which stands in place of a numerator the mean winter temperature; and that which stands in the place of a denominator the mean summer temperature. Besides the great difference of mean annual temperature, there is also a striking difference between the two coasts in respect to the distribution of that temperature into the different seasons of the year, and it is this distribution which is most influential both on our feelings and on the processes of vegetation. Dove remarks generally, that the summer temperature of America is lower under equal degrees of latitude than that of Europe: (Temperatur tafeln nebst Bemerkungen über die Verbreitung der Wärme auf der Oberfläche der Erde, 1848, S. 95.) The climate of St. Petersburgh, (or to speak more correctly the mean annual temperature of that city which is in lat. 59° 56′), is found on the east coast of America in lat. 47½°, or 12½° more to the south; in like manner we find the climate of Konigsberg, (lat. 54° 43′), at Halifax, (lat. 44° 39′). The temperature of Toulouse, (lat. 43° 36′) corresponds to that of Washington (lat. 38° 53′).
It would be very hazardous to lay down any general statements respecting the temperature in the territory of the United States of America, as we must distinguish in that territory three regions:—1, the Atlantic States east of the Alleghanies; 2, the Western States in the wide basin between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, through which flow the Mississipi, the Ohio, the Arkansas, and the Missouri; 3, the high plains between the Rocky Mountains, and the Maritime Alps of New California through which the Oregon or Columbia River finds a passage. Since the highly honourable establishment, by John Calhoun, of uninterrupted observations of temperature, made on an uniform plan at 35 military posts, and reduced to daily, monthly, and annual means, we have arrived at more just climatic views than those which were so generally received in the time of Jefferson, Barton, and Volney. These meteorological stations or observatories extend from the point of Florida and Thompson’s Island, (Key West), lat. 24° 33′, to the Council Bluffs on the Missouri; and if we reckon amongst them Fort Vancouver, lat. 45° 37′, they include differences of longitude of 40°.
It cannot be affirmed that, on the whole, the mean annual temperature of the second or middle region is higher than that of the first or Atlantic region. The further advance of certain plants towards the north, on the west of the Alleghany mountains, depends partly on the nature of those plants, and partly on the different distribution of the same annual quantity of heat. The wide valley of the Mississipi enjoys at its northern and southern extremities the warming influence of the Canadian Lakes, and of the Mexican Gulf stream. The five lakes, (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario), occupy a space of 92,000 English square miles. The climate is much milder and more equable in the neighbourhood of the lakes; for example, at Niagara, (lat. 43° 15′), the mean winter temperature is only half a degree of Reaumur (1°.2 Fahrenheit) below the freezing point, while at a distance from the lakes, in lat. 44° 53′, at the confluence of the river St. Peter’s with the Mississipi, the mean winter temperature of Fort Snelling is -7°.2 Reaumur, or 15°.9 Fahrenheit (see Samuel Forry’s excellent Memoir on “the Climate of the United States,” 1842, p. 37, 39, and 102.) At this distance from the Canadian Lakes, (whose surface is from 500 to 600—530 to 640 English—feet above the level of the sea, whilst the bottom of the lakes Michigan and Huron is about five hundred feet below it), recent observations have shewn the climate of the country to possess a proper continental character, i. e., hotter summers and colder winters. “It is proved,” says Forry, “by our thermometrical data, that the climate west of the Alleghany Chain is more excessive than that of the Atlantic side.” At Fort Gibson, on the Arkansas River which falls into the Mississipi in lat. 35° 47′, with a mean annual temperature hardly equal to that of Gibraltar, the thermometer in the shade, and without any reflected heat from the ground, has been seen, in August 1834, to rise to 37°.7 Reaumur, or 117° Fahrenheit.
The statement so often repeated, although unsupported by any thermometric measurements, that since the first European settlements in New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the eradication of many forests on both sides of the Alleghanies had rendered the climate more equable, (i. e., milder in winter and cooler in summer), is now generally doubted or disbelieved. Series of trustworthy thermometric observations in the United States hardly extend so far back as 78 years. We see in the Philadelphia observations, that from 1771 to 1824, the mean annual temperature has hardly increased 1°.2 Reaumur, (or 2°.8 Fahrenheit),—a difference which is attributed to the increased size of the town, to its greater population, and to the numerous steam-engines. The difference may possibly be merely accidental, for I find in the same period an increase of mean winter cold, amounting to 0°.9 Reaumur, or 2° Fahrenheit; the three other seasons had become somewhat warmer. Three-and-thirty years’ observations at Salem in Massachusetts shew no alteration at all: the annual means oscillate, within a degree of Fahrenheit, about the mean of the whole number of years; and the winters of Salem, instead of having become milder, as supposed from the destruction of the forests in the course of the thirty-three years, have become colder by 1°.8 Reaumur, or 4° Fahrenheit. (Forry, p. 97, 101, and 107.)
As the east coast of the United States is comparable in respect to mean annual temperature in equal latitudes to the Siberian and Chinese coasts of the old continent, so also the west coasts of Europe and America have been very properly compared together. I will only take a few examples from the western region on the shores of the Pacific, for two of which (Sitka in Russian America, and Fort George, in the same latitudes respectively as Gottenburg and Geneva) I am indebted to Admiral Lütke’s voyage of circumnavigation. Iluluk and Danzig are nearly on the same parallel, and although the mean temperature of Iluluk, owing to its insular climate and to a cold sea-current, is somewhat lower than that of Danzig, yet the winter temperature of the American station is milder than that of the port on the Baltic.
| Latitude. | Longitude. | Reaumur. | Fahrenheit. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sitka | 57° 3′ | 135° 16′ W. | 5°.6 | 0°.6 | 44°.5 | 33°.4 |
| —— | —— | |||||
| 10°.2 | 55°.0 | |||||
| Gottenburg | 57° 41′ | 11° 59′ E. | 6°.4 | -0°.2 | 46°.4 | 31°.5 |
| —— | —— | |||||
| 13°.5 | 62°.4 | |||||
| Fort George | 46° 18′ | 122° 58′ W. | 8°.1 | 2°.6 | 50°.3 | 37°.9 |
| —— | —— | |||||
| 12°.4 | 60°.0 | |||||
| Geneva | 46° 12′ | (Alt. 1298 E. ft.) | 7°.9 | 0°.7 | 49°.8 | 33°.6 |
| —— | —— | |||||
| 14°.0 | 63°.5 | |||||
| Kherson | 46° 38′ | 32° 39′ E. | 9°.4 | -3°.1 | 53°.2 | 25°.0 |
| —— | —— | |||||
| 17°.3 | 71°.0 | |||||
Snow is hardly ever seen on the banks of the Oregon or Columbia river, and ice on the river lasts only a very few days. The lowest temperature which Mr. Ball once observed there in the winter of 1833 was 6½° of Reaumur below the freezing point, or 17.4° Fahrenheit (Message from the President of the United States to Congress, 1844, p. 160; and Forry, Clim. of the U. States, p. 49, 67, and 73). A cursory glance at the summer and winter temperatures above given, shews that on and near the west coast, a true insular climate prevails. The winter cold is less than in the western parts of the old continent, and the summers are much cooler. The most striking contrast is presented by comparing the mouth of the Oregon with Forts Snelling and Howard, and the Council Bluffs, in the interior of the Mississipi and Missouri basin (Lat. 44°-46°),—where, to speak in the language of Buffon, we find an excessive, or true continental climate,—a winter cold, on single days, of -28°.4 and -30°.6 Reaumur (-32° and -37° Fahr.), followed by mean summer temperatures of 16°.8 and 17°.5 Reaumur (69° and 71°.4 Fahr.)