Outlines of Physical Geography

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Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman, 1863 - Physical geography - 225 pages
 

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Page 149 - For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs : "But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven...
Page 190 - The human animal is the only one which is naked, and the only one which can clothe itself. This is one of the properties which renders him an animal of all climates, and of all seasons. He can adapt the warmth or lightness of his covering to the temperature of his habitation. Had he been born with a fleece upon his back, although he might have been comforted by its warmth in high latitudes, it would have oppressed him by its weight and heat, as the species spread towards the equator.
Page 159 - ... abounding in rivers, and which, in those parts of the country that are the farthest distant from mountains and from the ocean, give rise to enormous masses of water, which are either attracted by them, or are formed during the act of vegetation, — all these causes produce, in the lower parts of America, a climate which, from its coolness and humidity, is singularly contrasted with that of Africa. To these causes alone must we ascribe that abundant vegetation, so vigorous and so rich in juices,...
Page 16 - The examination of a coral reef during the different stages of one tide is particularly interesting. When the tide has left it for some time it becomes dry, and appears to be a compact rock, exceedingly hard and...
Page 16 - ... invisible. These animals are of a great variety of shapes and sizes, and in such prodigious numbers, that, in a short time, the whole surface of the rock appears to be alive and in motion. The most common worm is in the form of...
Page 115 - Europe the rigors of winter. Moving now more slowly, but dispensing its genial influences more freely, it finally meets the British Islands. By these it is divided, one part going into the polar basin of Spitzbergen, the other entering the Bay of Biscay, but each with a warmth considerably above the ocean temperature.
Page i - But let me once understand the real geography of a country, its organic structure if I may so call it: the form of its skeleton, that is, of its hills: the magnitude and course of its veins and arteries, that is, of its streams and rivers : let me conceive of it as...
Page 127 - ... violence without having experienced it ; but it may be compared to the heat of a large oven at the moment of drawing out the bread. When these winds begin to blow, the atmosphere assumes an alarming aspect.
Page 17 - The growth of coral appears to cease when the worm is no longer exposed to the washing of the sea. Thus, a reef rises in the form of a cauliflower, till its top has gained the level of the highest tides, above which the worm has no power to advance, and the reef of course no longer extends itself upwards. The...
Page 59 - A great wave swept over the coast of Spain, and is said to have been sixty feet high at Cadiz. At Tangier, in Africa, it rose and fell eighteen times on the coast ; at Funchal, in Madeira, it rose full fifteen feet perpendicular above high-water mark, although the tide, which ebbs and flows there seven feet, was then at half ebb.

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