The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

GULP STKEAM-TEMPEEATUEE. 7region is only 9°. Throughout the basin between Scotland, Norway, Iceland, andSpitzbergen the surface waters are from 2° to 5° warmer than the surroundingatmosphere, the proportion being reversed only in summer, when the temperatureof the atmosphere is slightly higher. The hot air is then tempered by the sea,the reverse being the case throughout the rest of the year.So great is the general influence exercised by the main current of warm waterson the climate of the European continent, and especially of the lands encircled byit, tbat it alone renders the British Isles and Scandinavia inhabitable. Likeanother Labrador, this region would remain the abode of wild animals, maintainingwith difficulty a few scattered communities on the banks of the sheltered creeks.Fig. 3. Isothermal Lines, North -East Atlantic, in January.According to Mohn. Scale 1 : 28,000,000.It is the southern current acting in concert with the south-west winds that hasenabled the English race to rise and develop. Hence it has played a chief part inthe modern history of mankind.The deflection of the isothermal lines caused by the currents of air and waterin the North Atlantic is the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind on thewhole surface of the globe. In many places the importance of the latitudes forthe local climate seems to be completely neutralised, the mean temperature risingnot from north to south, but from south to north. This is due to the southernwaters bringing with them the tropical heat, and discharging it in the regionsof Northern Europe. A climate conveyed northwards by the current thus overlapsc 2