By
a comparison of places in the Cordilleras, lying at an equal elevation above
the level of the sea, either on the declivities of the mountains or even on
extensive elevated plateaux, I observed that in the latter there was an
increase in the annual temperature varying from 2.7 degrees to 4.1 degrees.
This difference would be still greater if it were not for the cooling effect
of nocturnal radiation. As the different climates are arranged in
successive strata, the one above the other, from the cacao woods of the
valleys to the region of perpetual snow, and as the temperature in the
tropics varies but little throughout the year, we may form to ourselves a
tolerably correct representation of the climatic relations to which the
inhabitants of the large cities in the Andes are subjected, by comparing
these climates with the temperatures of particular months in the plains of
France and Italy. While
p 329
the heat which prevails daily on the woody shores of the Orinoco exceeds by
7.2 degrees that of the month of August at Palermo, we find, on ascending
the chain of the Andes, at Popayan, at an elevation of 3826 feet, the
temperature of the three summer months of Marseilles; at Quito, at an
elevation of 9541 feet, that of the close of May at Paris; and on the
Paramos, at a height of 11,510 feet, where only stunted Alpine shrubs grow,
though flowers still bloom in abundance, that of the beginning of April at
Paris.
Pages:
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687