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of excessive violence, as might in fact be inferred from the extreme steadiness of the barometer, whose daily range at Batavia rarely exceeds one-eighth of an inch, while the extreme range during three years was less than one-third of an inch! The amount of the rainfall is very great, seventy or eighty inches in a year being a probable average; and as the larger part of this occurs during three or four months, individual rainfalls are often exceedingly heavy. The greatest fall recorded at Batavia during three years was three inches and eight-tenths in one hour, but this was quite exceptional, and even half this quantity is very unusual. The greatest rainfall recorded in twenty-four hours is seven inches and a quarter; but more than four inches in one day occurs only on two or three occasions in a year. The blue colour of the sky is probably not so intense as in many parts of the temperate zone, while the brilliancy of the moon and stars is not perceptibly greater than on our clearest frosty nights, and is undoubtedly much inferior to what is witnessed in many desert regions, and even in Southern Europe.

On the whole, then, we must decide that uniformity and abundance, rather than any excessive manifestations, are the prevailing characteristic of all the climatal phenomena of the equatorial zone.

Concluding Remarks

We cannot better conclude our account of the equatorial climate than by quoting the following vivid description of the physical phenomena which occur during the early part of the dry season at Para. It is taken from Mr. Bates' Naturalist on the Amazons, and clearly exhibits some of the more characteristic features of a typical equatorial day.

"At that early period of the day (the first two hours after sunrise) the sky was invariably cloudless, the thermometer marking 72° or 73° Fahr.; the heavy dew or the previous night's rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming quickly dissipated by the glowing sun, which, rising straight out of the east, mounted rapidly towards the zenith. All nature was fresh, new leaf and flower-buds expanding rapidly. . . . The

1 On 10th January 1867, from 1 to 2 a. M.

heat increased hourly, and towards two o'clock reached 92° to 93° Fahr., by which time every voice of bird and mammal was hushed. The leaves, which were so moist and fresh in early morning, now became lax and drooping, and flowers shed their petals. On most days in June and July a heavy shower would fall some time in the afternoon, producing a most welcome coolness. The approach of the rain-clouds was after a uniform fashion very interesting to observe. First, the cool sea-breeze which had commenced to blow about ten o'clock, and which had increased in force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag, and finally die away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere would then become almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness would seize on every one, even the denizens of the forest betraying it by their motions. White clouds would appear in the east and gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole eastern horizon would become almost suddenly black, and this would spread upwards, the sun at length becoming obscured. Then the rush of a mighty wind is heard through the forest, swaying the tree-tops; a vivid flash of lightning bursts forth, then a crash of thunder, and down streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon cease, leaving bluish-black motionless clouds in the sky until night. Meantime all nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower-petals. and fallen leaves are seen under the trees. Towards evening life revives again, and the ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. The following morning the sun again rises in a cloudless sky; and so the cycle is completed; spring, summer, and autumn, as it were in one tropical day. The days are more or less like this throughout the year. Α little difference exists between the dry and wet seasons; but generally the dry season, which lasts from July to December, is varied with showers, and the wet, from January to June, with sunny days. It results from this, that the periodical phenomena of plants and animals do not take place at about the same time in all species, or in the individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate countries. In Europe a woodland scene has its spring, its summer, its autumnal, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests the aspect is the same or nearly so every day in the year; budding, flowering,

fruiting, and leaf-shedding are always going on in one species or other. It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. With the day and night always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day neutralising themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun in its course proceeding midway across the sky, and the daily temperature almost the same throughout the year-how grand in its perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the equator!"

II

EQUATORIAL VEGETATION

The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its causes-General features of the Equatorial Forests-Characteristics of the Larger Forest-trees-Flowering Trunks and their probable cause— -Uses of Equatorial Forest-treesThe Climbing Plants of the Equatorial Forests--Palms-Uses of Palmtrees and their Products-Ferns-Ginger-worts and wild BananasArums-Screw-pines-Orchids-Bamboos-Uses of the BambooSensitive-plants-Comparative Scarcity of Flowers

Mangroves

Concluding Remarks on Tropical Vegetation.

IN the following sketch of the characteristics of vegetable life in the equatorial zone, it is not intended to enter into any scientific details or to treat the subject in the slightest degree from a botanical point of view; but merely to describe those general features of vegetation which are almost or quite peculiar to this region of the globe, and which are so general as to be characteristic of the greater part of it rather than of any particular country or continent within its limits.

The Equatorial Forest-Belt and its Causes

With but few and unimportant exceptions a great forest band from a thousand to fifteen hundred miles in width girdles the earth at the equator, clothing hill, plain, and mountain with an evergreen mantle. Lofty peaks and precipitous ridges are sometimes bare, but often the woody covering continues to a height of eight or ten thousand feet, as in some of the volcanic mountains of Java and on portions of the Eastern Andes. Beyond the forests both to the north and south, we meet first with woody and then open country, soon changing into arid plains or even deserts which form an almost con

tinuous band in the vicinity of the two tropics. On the line of the tropic of Cancer we have, in America, the deserts and dry plains of New Mexico; in Africa the Sahara; and in Asia, the Arabian deserts, those of Beloochistan and Western India, and farther east the dry plains of North China and Mongolia. On the tropic of Capricorn we have, in America, the Grand Chaco desert and the Pampas; in Africa, the Kalahari desert and the dry plains north of the Limpopo; while the deserts and waterless plains of Central Australia complete the arid zone. These great contrasts of verdure and barrenness occurring in parallel bands all round the globe, must evidently depend on the general laws which determine the distribution of moisture over the earth, more or less modified by local causes. Without going into meteorological details, some of which have been given in the preceding chapter, the main facts may be explained by the mode in which the great aerial currents are distributed. The trade winds passing over the ocean from north-east to south-west, and from south-east to north-west, with an oblique tendency towards the equator, become saturated with vapour, and are ready to give out moisture whenever they are forced upwards or in any other way have their temperature lowered. The entire equatorial zone becomes thus charged with vapourladen air, which is the primary necessity of a luxuriant vegetation. The surplus air (produced by the meeting of the two trade winds) which is ever rising in the equatorial belt and giving up its store of vapour, flows off north and south as dry, cool air, and descends to the earth in the vicinity of the tropics. Here it sucks up whatever moisture it meets with and thus tends to keep this zone in an arid condition. The trades themselves are believed to be supplied by descending currents from the temperate zones, and these are at first equally dry and only become vapour-laden when they have passed over some extent of moist surface. At the solstices the sun passes vertically over the vicinity of the tropics for several weeks, and this further aggravates the aridity; and wherever the soil is sandy and there are no lofty mountain chains to supply ample irrigation, the result is a more or less perfect desert. Analogous causes, which a study of aerial currents will render intelligible, have produced other great

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