8 degrees, which is 9 degrees below that of
Naples, situated somewhat further to the north. The mean winter temperature
of Pekin is at least 5.4 degrees below the freezing point, while in Western
Europe, even at Paris (48 degrees 50'), it is nearly 6 degrees above the
freezing point. Pekin has also a mean winter cold which is 4.5 degrees
lower than that of Copenhagen, lying 17 degrees further to the north.
We have already seen the slowness with which the great mass of the ocean
follows the variations of temperature in the atmosphere, and how the sea
acts in equalizing temperatures, moderating simultaneously the severity of
winter and the heat of summer. Hence arises a second more important
contrast -- that, namely, between insular and littoral climates enjoyed by
all articulated continents having deeply indented bays and peninsulas, and
between the climate of the interior of great masses of solid land. This
remarkable contrast has been fully
p 322
developed by Leopold von Buch in all its various phenomena, both with
respect to its influence on vegetation and agriculrure, on the transparency
of the atmosphere, the radiation of the soil, and the elevation of the line
of perpetual snow. In the interior of the Asiatic Continent, Tobolsk,
Barnaul on the Oby, and Irkutsk, have the same mean summer heat as Berlin,
Munster, and Cherbourg in Normandy, the thermometer sometimes remaining for
weeks together at 86 degrees or 88 degrees, while the mean winter
temperature is, during the coldest month, as low as -0.
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