The physical geography of the sea, and its meteorology / by M. F. Maury.

  • Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 1806-1873.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physical geography of the sea, and its meteorology / by M. F. Maury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    and 20,000 feet. In America, from the line south to the tropics, as also, as there is now everj reason to believe, in Africa within similar latitudes, vast ridges of mountains, covered with per- petual snow, run northward and southward in the line of the meridian right across the path of the trade-winds. A similar ridge, though of less magnificent dimensions, traverses the peninsula of Hindoostan, increasing in altitude as it approaches the line, attaining an elevation of 8500 feet at Dodabetta, and about 6000 in Ceylon. The Alps in Europe, and the gigantic chain of the Himalayas in Asia, both far south in the temperate zone, stretch from east to west, and intercept the aerial current from the north. Others of lesser note, in the equatorial or meridional, or some intermediate direction, cross the paths of the atmospherical currents in every direction, imparting to them fresh supplies of cold, as they themselves obtain from them warmth in exchange : in strictness the two operations are tlie same. 33. Water.— Magnificent and stupendous as are the effects and results of the water and of air acting independently on each other, in equalizing the temperature of the globe, they are still more so when combined. One cubic inch of water, when in- vested with a sufficiency of heat, will form one cubic foot of steam —the water before its evaporation, and the vapour which it forms being exactly of the same temperature ; though in reality, in the process of conversion, 1100 degrees of heat have been absorbed or carried away from the vicinage, and rendered latent or imper- ceptible ; this heat is returned in a sensible and perceptible form the moment the vapour is converted once more into water. The general fact is the same in the case of vapour carried off by dry air at any temperature that may be imagined; for, down far below the freezing-point, evaporation proceeds unin- terruptedly. 34. Latent heat.— The air, heated and dried as it sweeps over the arid surface cf the soil, drinks up by day myriads of tons of moisture from the sea—as much, indeed, as would, were no moisture restored to it, depress its whole surface at the rate of eight or ten feet annually. The quantitj^ of heat thus con- verted from a sensible or perceptible to an insensible or latent state is almost incredible. The action equall}^ goes on, and with the like results, over the surface of the earth, where there is moisture to be withdrawn. But nigrht and the seasons of the