Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Region Of Palm-Trees, Bananas And Arborescent
Gramina Extends Far Beyond The Two Tropics:
But it would be dangerous
to apply what has been observed at the extremity of the tropical zone
to what may take place in the plains near the equator.
In order to
rectify those errors it is important that the mean temperature of the
year and months be well known, as also the thermometric oscillations
in different seasons at the parallel of the Havannah; and to prove by
an exact comparison with other points alike distant from the equator,
for instance, with Rio Janeiro and Macao, that the lowering of
temperature observed in the island of Cuba is owing to the irruption
and the stream of layers of cold air, borne from the temperate zones
towards the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The mean temperature of
the Havannah, according to four years of good observations, is 25.7
degrees (20.6 degrees R.), only 2 degrees centigrade above that of the
regions of America nearest the equator. The proximity of the sea
raises the mean temperature of the year on the coast; but in the
interior of the island, when the north winds penetrate with the same
force, and where the soil rises to the height of forty toises, the
mean temperature attains only 23 degrees (18.4 degrees R.) and does
not exceed that of Cairo and Lower Egypt. The difference between the
mean temperature of the hottest and coldest months rises to 12 degrees
in the interior of the island; at the Havannah and on the coast, to 8
degrees; at Cumana, to scarcely 3 degrees.
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