der
Akad. der Wissensch. zu Berlin von dem Jahr' 1827, s. 311.
If we observe that in Europe the mean annual temperature falls as we
proceed, from west to east, under the same parallel of latitude, from the
Atlantic shores of France through Germany, Poland, and Russia, toward the
Uralian Mountains, the main cause of this phenomenon of increasing cold must
be sought in the form of the continent (which becomes less indented, and
wider, and more compact as we advance), in the increasing distance from
seas, and in the diminished influence of westerly winds. Beyond the Uralian
Mountains these winds are converted into cool land-winds, blowing over
extended tracts covered with ice and show. The cold of western Siberia is
to be ascribed to these relations of configuration and atmospheric currents,
and not -- as Hippocrates and Trogus Pompeius, and even celebrated travelers
of the eighteenth century conjectures -- to the great elevation of the soil
above the level of the sea.*
[footnote] *The general level of Siberia, from Tobolsk, Tomsk, and Barnaul,
from the Altai Mountains to the Polar Sea, is not so high as that of Mauheim
and Dresden; indeed, Irkutsk, far to the east of the Jenisei, is only 1330
feet above the level of the sea, or about one third lower than Munich.
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