onous effects of temperature.

The reformer Luther, as eccentric as he was learned and sincere, is
reported to have said, that, if he had been consulted at the Creation,
he would have placed the sun directly over the centre of the world and
kept it there, to give unchanging and uniform light and heat! It is
certainly much better that he was not consulted. In that case, every
parallel of latitude would have been isothermal, or of equal mean
annual temperature. The seasons would have been invariable in
character. Some portions of the earth would have been scorched to
crispness, others locked up in never-changing ice.

Vegetation, instead of being universal, would have been confined to a
narrow zone; and the whole human race would have been driven together
into one limited habitable space, to interfere with, incommode, and
destroy each other. The arrangement is best as it is.

We find very important modifications of temperature, occasioned not
only by astronomical influences, but by local causes and geographical
characteristics. For while, as a general rule, the nearer we approach
the equator, the warmer we shall be, yet temperature is greatly
affected by mountains, seas, currents of air or water, by radiation,
by forests, and by vegetation. It is found, in fact, that the lines of
temperature, (the happy conception of Humboldt,) when they are traced
upon the map, are anything but true zones or circles.

The line of the greatest mean warmth is not coincident with the
equator, but falls to the north of it. This line at 160 deg. W. Long, from
Greenwich is 4 deg. below the geographical equator; at 80 deg. it is about 6 deg.
north, sweeping along the coast of New Granada; at 20 deg. it comes down
and touches the equator; at 40 deg. E. Long., it crosses the Red Sea about
16 deg. north of the equator, and at 120 deg. it falls at Borneo, several
degrees below it;--and the points of the greatest heat, in this line,
are in Abyssinia, nearer the tropic of Cancer than to the equator. On
the other hand, the greatest mean cold points, according to the
opinions of Humboldt, Sir David Brewster, and others, do not coincide,
as would seem natural, with the geographical poles, but they are both
to be found in the northern hemisphere, in Latitude 80 deg., 95 deg.E. Long.
and 100 deg. W. Long. from Greenwich. The western is ascertained to be
4-1/2 deg. colder than the eastern or Siberian. If this be the fact,--but
it is not positively admit