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Show ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 121 belonging to the Ancient World cnclo ed in those strata, show that several great depo itions ha,-e taken place almost simultaneously over the entire globe." (For the fossil vegetable remains in the coal formation in North America and in Europe, compare Adolph Brogniart, Prodrome d'une His. des Veg~taux Fossiles, p. 179; and Charles Lyell's Travels in North America, vol. ii. p. 20.) (!I~) p. 31.-" The Southern Hernisphe1·e is cooler and moister than our ]{orthern half of the globe." Chili, Buenos Ayres, and the southern parts of Brazil and Peru have all, as a result of the narrowness of the Continent of South America as it tapers towards the south, a true "insular climate;" or a climate of cool summers and mild winters. As far as the 48th or 50th parallel of latitude, this character of the Southern Hemisphere may be regarded as an advantage, but farther on towards the Antarctic Pole, South America gradually becomes an inhospitable wilderness. The difference of latitude of the southern terminating points of Australia (including Van Diem en Island), of Africa, and of America gives to each of these continents a peculiar character. The Straits of Magellan are between the 53d and 54th degrees of latitude, and yet in December and January, when the sun is 18 hours above the horizon, the temperature sinks to 4° Reaumur, or 41° Fahrenheit. Snow falls almost daily, and the highest atmospheric temperature observed by Churruca (1788) in December (the summer of those regions), was not above go R., or 52° 2' Fahr. The Cabo Pilar, whose towering rock, though only 218 toises, or 1394 English feet high, may be regarded as the southern termination of the chain of the Andes, is almost in the same latitude as Berlin. (Relacion del Viage al Estrecho de Magallanes, apendice, 1793, p. 76.) While in the Northern Hemisphere all the continents attain a sort of mean limit towards the Pole, coinciding pretty regularly with the parallel of 70°, the terminating points in the Southern Hemisphereof America, in the deeply indented and intersected Tierra del Fuego-of Australia-and of Africa--are respectively 34°1 46~ 0 1 and 56° distant from the South Pole. The temperature of the very unequal extents of ocean, which divide these southern points from the icy pole, contributes very materially to modify their climates. 11 |