THE COMPLETENESS OF MAN'S FUTURE KNOWLEDGE. BY THE REV. JAMES COOPER, M.A. THE incompleteness of man's knowledge in his present imperfect state of existence formed the subject of a previous paper, in which I endeavoured to shew that, in accordance with the apostle's declaration, we here see only "as through a glass darkly," and must adopt the language of the Psalmist-" Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it." This truth is calculated as it is doubtless in some measure designed to teach us humility; that we should receive, with all simplicity of mind, with childlike teachableness, every doctrine revealed in the word of God, without gainsaying. If such be the small amount of our knowledge, and such our incapacity to form a just conception of revealed truths, as has been already shewn, how can we presume to arraign the wisdom of God in any of his dispensations, or doubt the accuracy of any portion of revelation, because it is beyond our ideas of truth? how can we dispute the wisdom of any of the dispensations of God's providence, or presume to murmur at any of his commands or decrees? We are to remember, when tempted to doubt the certainty of revealed truths, that we are now but as children; and that, with regard to these matters, we can only speak as children, understand as children, and reason as children. But, though God is thus pleased to cause our present knowledge to be incomplete, and to set limits to our investigation into high and holy mysteries, he has been graciously pleased VOL. V.-NO. CXIII. PRICE 1d. to reveal, as a ground of hope and source of consolation under this state of pupilage, that we shall not always remain in this comparative ignorance; and that, when our appointed change comes, we shall see face to face, and shall know even as we are known. So complete will be this change in our condition, as regards the knowledge of God and of the Divine plans, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality, that we are assured respecting our present knowledge, "that it shall vanish away," or, in other words, it will be lost as trivial and valueless, swallowed up in the abundance of the revelation which we shall then possess; "For," says the apostle, "when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." As when we become men, we put away childish things; so when we are admitted to the beatific vision of the heavenly glory, all the knowledge of our earthly condition will be lost and forgotten, as the imperfect conceptions of childhood. As it is written, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." We In this gracious and glorious promise of the eternal Jehovah our faith must repose. Here we must take God at his word-that God with whom it is impossible that he should lie. We are to expect great things. cannot expect too much, or conceive the amount of bliss or of glory in store for the faithful servants of a heavenly Master. Shall not this consideration induce us to seek to become such faithful servants? Shall we not, in the blessed assurance such a promise is calculated to convey, find a powerful motive C to labour to be obedient, simple-minded | Lamb are the temple of it. And the city children? Shall we not willingly endure the affliction which, however overwhelming, is still declared to be light and but for a moment, when it is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory? And shall we not, in the believing anticipation of the promised glory, be content to walk by faith, and not by sight; and, like the apostle, be confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord? How overpowering the thought, that the day shall come and we know not how soonwhen every cloud shall be removed, and we shall see face to face! It doth not, indeed, appear what we shall be; but we know," says St. John," that when He shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Then shall we be privileged as was Moses in the mount, when the Lord spake unto him face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. Then " will he speak to us mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall we behold" (Numb. xii. 8). Then shall we walk with God in paradise, as did Adam before the fall. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;" yea," in heaven shall we always behold the face of our Father which is in heaven." And brilliant indeed are the representations of that glorious state, where we shall know God and the things of God even as we are known. We can at present, perhaps, conceive nothing more glorious than the sun, "which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race;" nothing more chaste and beautiful than the bright orb that illumines the night: but God tells us by the prophet Isaiah (xxiv. 23), "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." And again, in reference to the future dispensation of the Church, "The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light; and the days of thy mourning shall be ended" (lx. 19, 20). And with this agrees the vision of St. John (Rev. xxi.), concerning "that great city the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God." After a description of the beautiful materials of which the city is composed, it is added (22, 23), "And I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." And then (xxii. 4, 5), it is said, "And his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever." Such are the revealed particulars of that glorious state, where if we are of the number of God's faithful people, we shall see face to face, and shall know even as we are known. And who shall presume to add any human conception of that state of perfect knowledge and bliss? If they are but adaptations to our finite conceptions of things, we may be sure that we shall realise them to more than our feeble apprehensions of glory. While, then, we submit with all lowliness of mind to our present condition of childlike apprehensions, and ever bring a teachable spirit to the word of God, and acknowledge our ignorance-thankful for that measure of acquaintance with the character and purposes of the divine Being which he has been pleased to vouchsafe, we are privileged to look forward to a state of manhood--a state of matured understanding and knowledge-a state of glorious renovation of our bodies and souls, and of creation itself. This is our hope; let us cherish it; let us rejoice in it: and let us not forget, that " every man that hath this hope in him" of seeing God face to face "purifieth himself, even as he is pure." Sacred Philosophy. ASTRONOMY. BY THE REV. H. MOSELEY, M.A. Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in King's College, and Curate of Wandsworth. No. VIII. CAUSES DISTURBING THE ASTRONOMICAL DISTRIBUTION OF TEMPERATURE. THE Lord possessed wisdom in the beginning, before his works of old. While as yet he had not made the earth (Prov. viii. 22, 26) he infixed in the great elements of matter those laws under the control of which they were to congregate, and the mighty mass take its existing form and substance; and by reason of which motion, and in an appointed path, should, to the end the earth, spinning upon her axle, with a changeless of time, "'roll Her motions, as the first great Mover's hand Moreover, from the beginning his goodness took part in the counsels of his wisdom. He so poised, there "With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps fore, that primeval impulse, that there should be given to the earth's axle a position, in respect to the plane of her orbit, by which should be brought about the vicissitude of our seasons-having first so moulded her shape, that this position of her axis should remain unchanged for ever. Thus it has come to pass that "cold and heat, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, cease not, and shall not cease, while the earth remaineth" (Gen. viii. 21). In very deed the earth is "full of the goodness of the Lord" (Ps. xxxiii. 5), and it endureth continually (Jam. i. 17); he "blesseth the springing of it, and reneweth the face of it, and enricheth it with the river of God" (Ps. lxv. 9, 11). Vegetation is spread upon it as a garment, and life throngs it— "Air, water, earth, By fowl, fish, beast, is flown, is swum, is walk'd." God "openeth his hand liberally, and filleth all things living with plenteousness." "He causeth grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man;"" so that the pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn" (Ps. lxv. 13). That position of the earth's axle on which this distribution of temperature upon its surface depends is so chosen as to make nearly the same extreme summer heat to traverse almost eight-ninths of it, probably that it may minister every where in succession, and with a like influence, to the great perpetuating effort of vegetable life-fructification. In this equality of extreme summer heat the extreme winter cold does not, however, partake. Within the tropics the seasons are scarcely distinguishable by any difference of temperature; whilst there are places within the temperate region where the mean temperature of the hottest month rises to 84°, and that of the coldest month sinks to 2410. This comparative equality of extreme summer heat, and variety of extreme winter cold, do not, however, embrace the whole question of the distribution of heat on the earth. These would assign, by an unerring law, certain invariable mean temperatures to particular geographical regions; and vegetation would spread itself, so far as it is dependent upon these causes, and with it animal life, in a series of graduated and parallel zones from the poles to the equator. But it is not so. It was in the order of Providence that creative power should be developed under an infinitely disseminated variety§ of form and circumstance; and to this variety the distribution of temperature adapts itself, and ministers. The better to understand how, let us return to the supposition of the artificer, and let us imagine that, wishing to distribute his work, not with a measured and artificial uniformity, but by a natural variation and intermingling of its forms, he finds himself straitened by that accurate distribution of temperature upon his globe in parallel zones, which re The earth is not strictly a sphere, but an oblate spheroid, being a geometrical solid, which may be imagined to be generated by the revolution of an ellipse about its shorter diameter. Had her form been that of a perfect sphere, or of a prolate spheroid -a figure generated by the revolution of an ellipse about its longer diameter-the position of her axis would have been perpetually changing, and the climate of every place continually varying. Her existing form of an oblate spheroid would have been given to the earth had she first been made to revolve when in a fluid state. The reader may here be reminded of the fact stated in a preceding paper, that at St. Petersburgh the thermometer rises almost every year to above 90°; and that on the coast of Guinea it rarely exceeds 95°. In this country almost every summer brings a few days of tropical heat. There are, of course, many exceptions to the rule stated in the text-they are cases of remarkable heat, and serve but to confirm it. At Pekin, the extreme heat was observed by the embassy, in 1816, to vary in September from 90° to 108°. This principle of infinite variety in nature we are all perfectly familiar with. It is even implied in the meaning we usually attach to the word natural as distinguished from artificial. sults from its uniform return to similar positions in respect to the central fire. He requires to be able to introduce at will variations in the great features of this distribution. How shall he command them? The existing variations of temperature depend, first, upon this, that the rays of light do not fall upon different points of the surface of his globe with the same inclination or obliquity. Secondly,-Upon the difference of the times during which different portions revolve in the heat and in the cold, causing them to heat and cool differently. Both these causes are uniform, and independent of the artificer. How shall he control their operation, and vary them? ASPECT. He may diminish the obliquity with which any portion of the surface receives the rays of heat, and indeed cause it to receive them as directly as though it were within the tropics, and under the point of direct heat itself, simply by elevating it from the general surface of the sphere, and inclining it towards the incident rays. In the like manner, he may cause it to receive the rays less obliquely by inclining it from them. This is a variety of temperature which our artificer will, in point of fact, of necessity have introduced in every portion of the sphere which he has modelled. Every such raised and modelled part will have an aspect in reference to the light and heat, dependent upon its form and independent of its posi tion; and thus that character of the distribution which depended upon the spherical form of the surface will of necessity be infinitely modified. It is precisely thus with the earth's surface; for this reason, no doubt, amongst others, it is ploughed into deep fissures in some parts; sunk through large tracts into hollows in others; here, elevated into table-lands, whose sides slope gradually towards the north and the south, towards the rising and the setting sun; every where broken into hill and dale, mountain and valley. Thus, under a vertical sun, the sides of the Andes receive the sun's rays as obliquely as they fall in our latitudes upon the earth's level surfacenay, as obliquely, perhaps, as they fall in summer upon the level surface of the snows of Spitzbergen; whilst the Alps encounter on parts of their southern slopes as direct a heat as that which burns up the desert of Sahara; and on their northern they are as much hidden from the sun's influence as are the level snows of Lapland. In the Alps of the Vallais, on the one side you may see the vine in luxuriant growth when the other is thick ribbed with ice. Thus, too, the terraces and sloping planes which descend from the vast tableland of central Asia, where, inclining from its northern limit, they pass into the steppes of Siberia, present, under the latitude of Edinburgh, a cold intense enough to freeze mercury; whilst, upon the southern terraces of the opposite Himalaya slope, flourish at different elevations the pine-apple, the mangoe, the gigantic cotton-tree, and the saul. This tropical vegetation ascends them to an altitude of four or five thousand feet, mingling itself, and by degrees giving way to the plants of a temperate region-elms, willows, roses, and violets, destined in their turn, at a yet higher region, to yield to alpine forms of vegetable life. Every possible variety, so far as the greater or less obliquity of the sun's rays is concerned, is thus actually introduced by varieties of aspect. Were this cause of obliquity, indeed, the only one affecting the temperature, the same region would frequently be found to present, by its northern and southern aspects, the climates of the equator and the poles. The southern side of a mountain-chain in a high latitude, presenting As in the country surrounding the Caspian, many hundreds of square miles of which are from one to two hundred feet beneath the level of the sea. According to Dr. Royle, Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains. itself under as direct an incidence of the sun's rays as though it were a level surface under the equator,* and remaining in the summer during a longer time every day under its influence, would soon be burned up with at least an equal heat, were it not that there is a cold proper and peculiar to mountain regionscold arising out of a distinct cause hereafter to be explained mercifully spread upon them by Him who "possessed wisdom in the beginning," "before the mountains were brought forth, or ever he had formed the earth and the world" (Prov. viii. 22-26),— to temper the heat of those direct rays, to cover them from time to time with vapours, to make the rains descend upon them, to "water the hills from above" (Ps. civ. 13), and give birth to the streams. as the greater or less obliquity of the sun's rays is concerned, every possible variety of temperature is thus introduced by varieties of aspect. RADIATION. So far Another great cause of variation from an uniform distribution of temperature is to be sought in the great variety of the substances which compose the earth's surface, and their different capabilities for the receiving and radiating of heat. All the varieties of soil,-light and open vegetable moulds, gravelly and rocky tracts, stiff wet clays, and sandy plains, have, it cannot be questioned, their different powers of radiation and absorption; and whether a district be clay or sand, bare or covered with vegetation, for a like cause, greatly affects its temperature. It appears from experiment that the slightest differences in the sensible qualities of the surfaces of bodies are sufficient to give them different properties in respect to the radiation and absorption of heat; differences, for instance, of polish, of roughness or smoothness of colour, whether they be white or black-of material, whether they be metallic, or vitreous, or vegetable substancesmoist or dry. It cannot, therefore, be doubted, that the difference of surface so observable in different kinds of foliage-their darker or lighter colours, their more or less glossy leaves, the filamentous downy† substance which sometimes covers them-are all things affecting the radiation of their heat with an infinite variation. It is as though the artificer, to introduce variety into his work, had brought about the various temperatures which for this purpose he required by forming its surface of materials of different shades of colours, different degrees of roughness or smoothness, different degrees of moisture, different physical structures. Thus the same night which greatly depresses the temperature of a track whose surface is a humid clay, or a dark vegetable loam-substances which may be imagined to radiate heat freely would have a much less influence on a district of sand; and thusto take an example on a smaller scale-the same morning which found the temperature of the surface of a grass-field greatly reduced below that of the preceding day, would exhibit a less reduction of the surface of an adjacent ploughed field, and a yet less of the hard covering of a neighbouring high road. That it may do this, no more is required than that the inclination of its slope to the horizon should equal its latitude. + Downy filamentous substances are peculiarly favourable to the radiation of heat. Dr. Wells found black wool among the best radiators. Dr. Wells found the temperature of a gravel-walk to be greatly less reduced than that of the adjacent grass-lawn by the radiation of the same night. The different depressions of temperature of different substances by the radiation of the same night is strikingly illustrated by the deposition of hoar frost. When no traces of it can be seen on a winter's morning on the general surface of the road, it will be observed deposited in abundance on the straggling tufts of grass which border it, or are scattered here and there upon it, and it will cover the surface of the neighbouring grass-fields. After a severe frost it may, indeed, be seen sometimes upon the frozen edges of the carriage-tracks, or upon small frozen lumps of earth-a circumstance which is easily explained by the greater radiating surface which these present as compared with their bulk than the SHELTER. A second cause of variation of temperature, as it affects vegetation, is to be sought in the varieties of shelter under which its various forms and its different individuals exist. We are sufficiently aware that shelter is a protection to ourselves against heat and cold: in the first case, it acts by receiving the sun's rays, absorbing and radiating back certain of them, which for that reason never reach us; in the last, by receiving the rays of heat which we ourselves radiate, and radiating them back to us. It is thus precisely that vegetation is protected by shelter. To effect this protection in a degree, it is by no means necessary that the space which affords the shelter should be closed. The intervention of any object between a radiating body and the clear sky is sufficient to produce a continual return to it of its radiated heat. A thin awning of muslin has been found sufficient to protect a delicate plant from the cold of a frosty night- nay, the very interposition of a fleecy cloud is enough to cherish all night with warmth the track which it screens from the open sky.* Of the shelter which vegetation supplies to itself from the cold of night, some idea may from these facts be readily formed. The shelter of every leaf, no doubt, cherishes the heat of some other; every blade of grass reciprocates warmth with others that grow around it; and of the heat which day has given to the trees of the forest no inconsiderable portion remains during the night entangled among their foliage. Were it not indeed for this mutual shelter, the large radiating surfaces which vegetable forms present in comparison with their bulk would subject them to much greater depressions of temperature in comparison with the surface of the soil than those which they actually experience, and destroy them. No less useful is this mutual shelter to protect them in certain regions from the heat of day than from the cold of night. The same property which gives them a great power of radiating heat gives them a corresponding facility for absorbing it. Were all their parts equally exposed to the sun's rays, the heat thus absorbed would probably exceed the measure assigned to the economy of vegetable life. The external foliage then only receives it; and from the external leaves it is partly radiated back, and partly absorbed and radiated inwards to those which they shelter. The effect of shelter in ministering to the purposes of vegetation a subdued heat under the burning day of the tropics, and a moderated cold during the frosty nights, may be conceived from the fact stated by Lieut. Wellsted, that in the Tehama of Arabiaperhaps the hottest region of the globe-the fierce rays of the sun descending upon the topmost foliage of one of the islands of verdure in that vast ocean of sand, called Oases, raised the temperature of a thermometer placed six inches from the ground only to 45o. Under the varied temperature of this shade, scarcely covering an area 300 yards in diameter, and fed by general material of the road does. Thus it is, too, that whilst the glass of the windows of a house-glass radiating heat freelyhave their temperature so reduced as to receive a deposition of ice from the moisture of the atmosphere, none is to be seen on its walls. When the sky of a clear night suddenly became clouded, Dr. Wells always found the temperature of the grass instantly to rise on one occasion, he observed it, under these circumstances, to have elevated itself from 32° at nine o'clock to 39" at twenty minutes past nine; and in twenty minutes more, the sky having cleared, to have sunk again to its first temperature. On another occasion, the night clouded over, and it rose 15° in forty-five minutes. It is to the exceeding clearness of the sky that the coldness of the nights of certain hot countries is to be attri buted. In Palestine, when the night is sheltered by no cloud the cold is intense. Allusion is made to this circumstance in Gen. xxxi. 40, where Jacob, expostulating with Laban, declares that by day the drought had consumed him, and the frost by night." Travels in Arabia, recently published. that clammy moisture of the atmosphere which in these regions always accompanies cold, flourish an inconceivable variety of vegetable forms. There is to be seen the shady and towering date-palm;* and beneath it grow almond-trees, fig-trees, and walnuttrees, of enormous size, and orange and lime-trees, whose fruit clusters so thickly, that scarcely a tenth part of it, says the traveller, can be gathered. This teeming vegetation claims for itself every spot where there are springs and running waters; and thus it was because it was "a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills," that Moses described Canaan to the Israelites as "a land of wheat and barley, and vines and figtrees, and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive and honey." CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. If the whole surface of the earth were divided into ten equal parts, seven of them would be found to be occupied by the ocean, the land covering but the remaining three. Of all those various properties for the radiation, propagation, and absorption of heat, which belong to the different substances that compose it, and which affect the distribution of its temperature, the most important therefore controlling all the rest are the properties of water. The ocean has properties for giving out and propagating heat essentially different from those of the land. Immediately that the heat of the stratum which forms its surface is thrown off by radiation, having become specifically heavier than the water beneath it, the surface sinks, and is replaced by another surface, in its turn to be in like manner renewed. On the land no change like this can take place; and radiation from strata beneath its surface is continually obstructed by the interposition of the surface-stratum. Water has thus a remarkable facility for throwing off its heat; and thus every night the surface of the ecean gives out a much greater proportion of the heat it has received in the day than the land does. On the other hand, it derives from its fluid properties no additional facility for absorbing heat; for its surface, when heated, becomes thereby buoyant, and is made by its buoyancy to retain its position on the surface. So that heat can no otherwise reach the strata beneath its surface than it reaches the parts beneath the surface of a solid, viz. by propagation. What is the difference of the amount of heat absorbed by the ocean in the days of summer and that radiated in the summer nights-that is to say, what is the heating effect of the warm season upon it,-appears never to have been made the subject of experiment or observation. That it must be much less than the corresponding effect upon the land, and that the temperature of the sea must therefore be greatly more uniform throughout the year than that of the land, is evident. This is not, however, the only way in which the sea tends to equalise the earth's temperature. The different portions of that mighty expanse communicate— its waters extend in an interrupted, but an undivided sheet from the equator to either pole. Thus are different parts of the same vast mass of the ocean subjected to all those varieties of temperature which properly belong to different climates of the earth.† Now, when the different parts of the surface of a fluid are differently heated, they cannot remain rela It is only from the descriptions of those who have visited Eastern countries that we can realise that idea of the magpificence of vegetation on which many of the most beautiful allusions of Scripture are founded. How intelligible, for instance, does that sublime metaphor in which the righteous is said to flourish like the palm-tree" become, when we have conceived a vegetative power lifting the vast umbrageous head and plume-like foliage of the majestic date-palm from one hundred to two hundred feet upon the clear sky!. The temperatures of the ocean at the equator, in lat. 25°, and in lat. 50°, may be represented by the numbers 80, 70, 60, tively at rest as those of a solid do. The heated portions, becoming more buoyant, are immediately floated up above its general surface, and are replaced by the surrounding colder and heavier fluid which flows in beneath them. Thus raised above the general surface, the heated parts cannot, by the known laws of equilibrium, rest-their weight puts them in motion, and they spread themselves with a tendency to restore the general level of the surface. In the mean time, those portions of the fluid which displaced them, being in their turn subjected to the same heating influences, are, in a like manner, floated up, and moved off, to give place to others. Thus surface-currents are established in the fluid. And currents like these, established by like causes, are principal elements in the equalisation of the earth's temperature, bearing with them the burning temperature of one country to the cold shores of another - the heat of the tropics perpetually towards the poles.* Now, let the reader be again reminded that the surface of the sea occupies seven-tenths of the surface of the whole globe. He will then see that in the peculiar properties of water for the absorption and radiation of heat, in the laws of its equilibrium, and in the fact of its being stretched in an undivided sheet between the two extremities of the earth's axis, there is an admirable provision for equalising the earth's temperature from season to season, and from place to place. So that in his wisdom God" covered the earth with the deep as with a garment" (Ps. civ. 6), gathered together the waters," and " compassed them with bounds" (Job, xxvi. 10). 66 But it may be urged, that, whilst the properties of water for the radiation of heat, and its laws of equilibrium, have a manifest tendency to temper the climate of our summers by abundantly throwing off at night the heat received during the day, and to soften the cold of our winters by transferring to us some of the heat of the tropics, surely in higher latitudes, to which little heat can be carried by currents, and which endure during six months of the year almost a continual night, these properties of water, which are to us so beneficial, must be productive of an unendurable cold. For six months of the year the sea must there be perpetually radiating its heat, and perpetually changing its surface of radiation, until the warmth is abstracted from its deepest abysses, and the lowest degree of cold reigns through its mass. The regions about either pole must, in point of fact, in the alternate halves of the year, become, as it were, vast outlets, whence heat from all parts of the earth escapes with every facility, and uselessly, into space. Nature has provided against this result. In that region the properties which here give to the sea a marvellous facility for throwing off its heat cease to operate. When reduced to a certain temperature, water, instead of contracting by a farther radiation of heat, begins to expand. This limit of temperature being then past, instead of the colder strata sinking, and taking their places in succession beneath the warmer, they have a tendency to rise, and take their places above them. The surface-water thus becomes the coldest, and below it the temperature increases until the limit is attained where water ceases to There is a vast current of the Atlantic, called the Gulf Stream, stretching between Cape Hatteras, in North America (lat. 35o N.), and the Azores, and forming in the midst of the Atlantic a lake of warm water, heated from 3° to 10o above the surrounding sea, and not less in dimensions, according to Rennel, than the Mediterranean. It is by reason of the equalising effect of the sea that islands and maritime countries in general, and especially their coasts, have proverbially temperate climates; their summers are colder by reason of the more abundant radiation from the sea at night, and their winters are in our latitudes milder by reason of the transfer northwards of the heated waters of the equator. The climate of countries bordering the Mediterranean is peculiarly mild. It is, indeed, now ascertained that the temperature of that sea is 4° or 5° above that of the Atlantic. |