169. The latitude of a place; its height above the level of the sea; the position and direction of the mountain chains; its distance froin the sea; the slope of the country; the character of the soil; the degree of cultivation and density of population; and the quantity of rain that falls. 170. Oceanic and continental. Those regions which are open to the influence of the ocean are moist and mild, while those which are removed from the influence are commonly dry and suffer to great excesses of heat and cold. 171. A country covered with a barren, sandy soil is subject to great and rapid changes in its temperature, owing to the readiness with which it receives and parts with heat, while marshy lands, or lands covered with forests or vegetation, are more salubrious. 172. It is owing to the eastern or trade-winds which prevail, they having been deprived of moisture by crossing the continent and meeting the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. The westerly winds prevail from December to May, which produces the rainy season. 173. It is that department of Physical Geography which treats of all vegetable and animal life. 174. Botanical Geography, Zoological Geography, and Ethnography. 175. Botanical Geography treats of the different divisions of the vegetable kingdom and their geographical distribution. 176. 177. Moisture, in the form of rain or dew. The deserts of Gobi and Arabian in Asia, the Sahara in Africa, and the Atacama on the western slope of the Andes. 178. Into the cryptogamous (flowerless), and the phenogamous (flowering). 179. The mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and sea weeds. 180. Into two classes: the endogenous and the exoge nous. 181. The endogenous are those plants which increase from within, as grasses, sugar-cane, corn, etc. The exogenous are those which increase by coatings from without, as the trees of the forest, etc. 182. It is estimated that there are about 250,000 dis- tinct plant species upon the earth. have been described by botanists. 183. The lichens, algæ, and mosses. 184. Lichens cover the rocks in tropical deserts and in the regions of ice or snow. They are the most widely distributed class of plants. Algæ are sea and fresh water weeds, of the most varying forms and colors. Some attain an enormous size. One species, growing in the Straits of Magellan and near the Falkland Islands, is often 400 feet long. Mosses are also found in all zones, wherever moisture is abundant. In our forests they are quite common. 185. The palms. The tall and slender shaft rears on high its crown of shining, fan-like leaves. Some are nearly 200 feet high. They require a mean annual temperature of 780 to 820, Fahrenheit, and occur, therefore, chiefly in the hottest parts of the tropical zone. 186. Rice, bananas, bread-fruit, dates, cocoanuts, yams, cassava and sago. This 187. Bananas are the fruits of tropical plants. plant rises 15 or 20 feet high, with leaves six feet long and a foot broad. The fruit is four or five inches long, and an inch or more in diameter. They grow in large bunches, weighing a dozen pounds or more. Bread-fruit is produced by the bread-fruit tree, which grows in the isles of the Pacific Ocean, of the size of the common apple tree. The fruit is of a round or oval shape, as large as a small loaf of bread, which is eaten as food. Dates are a delicious fruit, produced by the date-palm of Asia and Africa. Cocoanuts are the fruits of the cocoa tree. These nuts hang in clusters of a dozen each, on the top of the tree, and are bound together by tough, stringy filaments. Yams are roots resembling the potato, and are cultivated in a similar manner. Cassava is a kind of bread made from the roots of the cassada plant. Sago is obtained from the pith of several species of palm trees, which form entire forests in many of the Spice Islands. The pith is prepared into sagomeal by mixing it with water and straining. A tree commonly yields from 300 to 500 pounds. 188. Wheat, potatoes, corn, rye, oats, and barley. 189. Cotton, hemp, and flax. 190. Pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmegs, and vanilla. 191. Tobacco, opium, betel, and haschish. 192. Opium is prepared from a specie of poppy, and is very extensively used in China and Turkey. The betel plant is a climbing shrub, which grows in Hindostan and the islands of the Indian Ocean. The leaves are used by the natives as tobacco. Haschish is a powerful narcotic, obtained from a specie of hemp-wort, and is used in India to produce intoxication. 193. That department of physical geography which treats of the divisions of the animal kingdom and its geographical distribution. 194. Into four classes: vertebrates, mollusks, articulates, and radiates. 195. This division includes all animals which have an internal skeleton joined to the backbone. It comprises four classes: 1. Mammalia; 2. Birds; 3. Reptiles; 4. Fishes. 196. Mollusks are animals of soft texture, and have no skeleton; as the oyster, snail, and mussel. Articulates are animals consisting of a number of joints or rings, soft or hard, supplying the place of a skeleton; as the lobster, worms, spiders, and insects. Radiates are so called because in many cases their organs are arranged like rays proceeding from a center. animals belong to this division. The coral and microscopic 197. They are the most perfect of the animal creation. They differ greatly in appearance and habits, but correspond in the one particular of suckling their young. They number about 3,000 species. 198. Into eight classes: Quadrumana (four-handed), monkey, ape; carnivora (flesh-eaters), bear, cat, dog; Marsupialia (pouched), opossum, kangaroo; rodentia (gnawers), beaver, squirrel, rat; edentata (toothless), sloth, armadillo; pachydermata (thick-skinned), elephant, horse, hog; ruminantia (chewing the cud), camel, ox, sheep; marine mammalia, whale, dolphin, seal. 199. It treats of the varieties of the human race, their physical and intellectual characteristics, and their geographical distribution on the earth. |