Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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In The Low
Regions, At The Port Of Orotava, And Wherever The Winds Have Free
Access, The Centigrade Thermometer Stands In Winter, In The Months
Of January And February, At Noon, Between Fifteen And Seventeen
Degrees; And The Greatest Heats Of Summer Do Not Exceed Twenty-Five
Or Twenty-Six Degrees.
The mean temperature of the coasts of
Teneriffe appears at least to rise to twenty-one degrees (16.8
degrees Reaumur); and the climate in those parts keeps at the
medium between the climate of Naples and that of the torrid zone.
The region of the vines exhibits, among its vegetable productions,
eight kinds of arborescent Euphorbia; Mesembrianthema, which are
multiplied from the Cape of Good Hope to the Peloponnesus; the
Cacalia Kleinia, the Dracaena, and other plants, which in their
naked and tortuous trunks, in their succulent leaves, and their
tint of bluish green, exhibit distinctive marks of the vegetation
of Africa. It is in this zone that the date-tree, the plantain, the
sugar-cane, the Indian fig, the Arum Colocasia, the root of which
furnishes a nutritive fecula, the olive-tree, the fruit trees of
Europe, the vine, and corn are cultivated. Corn is reaped from the
end of March to the beginning of May: and the culture of the
bread-fruit tree of Otaheite, that of the cinnamon tree of the
Moluccas, the coffee-tree of Arabia, and the cacao-tree of America,
have been tried with success. On several points of the coast the
country assumes the character of a tropical landscape; and we
perceive that the region of the palms extends beyond the limits of
the torrid zone.
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