Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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North And South Of The Equator, Storms Or Great
Explosions Take Place At The Same Time In The Temperate And In The
Equinoctial Zone.
Is there an action propagated through the great
aerial ocean from the temperate zone towards the tropics?
How can it
be conceived, that in that zone where the sun rises constantly to so
great a height above the horizon, its passage through the zenith can
have so powerful an influence on the meteorological variations? I am
of opinion that no local cause determines the commencement of the
rains within the tropics; and that a more intimate knowledge of the
higher currents of air will elucidate these problems, so complicated
in appearance. We can observe only what passes in the lower strata of
the atmosphere. The Andes are scarcely inhabited beyond the height of
two thousand toises; and at that height the proximity of the soil, and
the masses of mountains, which form the shoals of the aerial ocean,
have a sensible influence on the ambient air. What we observe on the
table-land of Antisana is not what we should find at the same height
in a balloon, hovering over the Llanos or the surface of the ocean.
We have just seen that the season of rains and storms in the northern
equinoctial zone coincides with the passage of the sun through the
zenith of the place,* (* These passages take place, in the fifth and
tenth degrees of north latitude between the 3rd and the 16th of April,
and between the 27th of August and the 8th of September.) with the
cessation of the north-east breezes, and with the frequency of calms
and bendavales, which are stormy winds from south-east and south-west,
accompanied by a cloudy sky.
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