The Physical Geography of the Sea Author:Matthew Fontaine Maury Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE ATMOSPHERE. The Relation of the Winds to the Physical Geography of the Sea, $ 88.—No Expression of Nature without Meaning, 93.—The Circula... more »tion of the Atmosphere, Plate I., 95.—Southeast Trade-wind Region the larger, 109.—How the Winds approach the Poles, 112.—The Offices of the Atmosphere, 114.—It is a powerful Machine, 118.— Whence come the Rains that feed the great Rivers 1 120.—How Vapor passes from one Hemisphere to the other, 123.—Evaporation greatest about Latitude 17- 20, 127.—Explanation, 128.—The Rainy Seasons: how caused, 129.—Why there is one Rainy Season in California, 130—One at Panama, 131—Two at Bogota, 132.—Rainless Regions explained, 135.—Why Australia is a Dry Country, 136.— Why Mountains have a dry and a rainy Side, 137.—The immense Fall of Rain upon the Western Ghauts in India: how caused, 139.—Vapor for the Patagonia Rains comes from the North Pacific, 141.—The mean annual Fall of Rain, 144.— Evaporation from the Indian Ocean, 146.—Evidences of Design, 148. 88. A Philosopher of the East, with a richness of imagery truly Oriental, describes the atmosphere as "a spherical shell which surrounds our planet to a depth which is unknown to us, by reason of its growing tenuity, as it is released from the pressure of its own superincumbent mass. Its upper surface can not be nearer to us than fifty, and can scarcely be more remote than five hundred miles. It surrounds us on all sides, yet we see it not; it presses on us with a load of fifteen pounds on every square inch of surface of our bodies, or from seventy to one hundred tons on us in all, yet we do not so much as feel its weight. Softer than the softest down—more impalpable than the finest gossamer—it leaves the cobweb undisturbed, and scarcely stirs the lightest flower that feeds on the ...« less