A System of Physical Geography: Containing a Description of the Natural Features of the Land and Water, the Phenomena of the Atmosphere, and the Distribution of Vegetable and Animal Life : to which is Added a Treatise on the Physical Geography of the United States ...H. Cowperthwait & Company, 1863 - 92 páginas |
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Africa Alleghany Amazon amount animals Antarctic Antarctic Circle Arctic Circle Arctic Ocean Asia Atlantic Ocean atmosphere Australia Basin California Cape Caribbean Sea Caspian Sea Caucasian race cause Central climate coast cold depth Describe Desert direction distance earth earthquake east Eastern Continent elevation Equator equatorial Europe extending feet fertile flow globe Grand Division greatest Greenwich Gulf of Mexico Gulf Stream heat height Himalaya inches inhabitants Islands Isothermal Lake land latitude Longitude West miles Mississippi moisture Monsoon Name navigation North-east Northern Hemisphere northern limit Pacific parallel Peninsula Physical Geography plains plants Plateau Polar Poles principal race rain falls range regions rivers rocks Rocky Mountains salt season Sierra Slope snow South America Southern species springs summer surface table-land Temperate Zone temperature tides tract trade-winds trees tribes Tropic of Cancer Tropic of Capricorn United Valley vegetation volcanoes Western winds winter
Pasajes populares
Página 32 - While sailing a little south of the Plata on one very dark night, the sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful spectacle. There was a fresh breeze, and every part of the surface, which during the day is seen as foam, now glowed with a pale light. The vessel drove before her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus, and in her wake she was followed by a milky train.
Página 36 - When the companions of Columbus saw it they thought it marked the limits of navigation, and became alarmed. To the eye, at a little distance, it seems substantial enough to walk upon.
Página 40 - Reaumur's, and the Centigrade. Fahrenheit's, that most generally used in the United States and England, and the standard adopted in this work, fixes the freezing point of water at 32° and the boiling point at 212°. Reaumur's, in most common use in Germany, fixes the two points respectively at 0° and 80°; and the Centigrade, the standard in France, and in many scientific works, fixes them at 0° and 100°.
Página 29 - A very slight declivity will suffice to give the running motion to water. Three inches per mile, in a smooth, straight channel, gives a velocity of about three miles an hour.
Página 36 - Now, if bits of cork or chaff, or any floating substance, be put into a basin, and a circular motion be given to the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together near the centre of the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a basin is the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream ; and the Sargasso Sea is the centre of the whirl.
Página 5 - It is, on the contrary; diminished 9'', when the node is in the autumnal equinox, and it is equal to the mean, when the node is in the colure of the solstices. This change of the inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic was called the nutation of the axis by Sir Isaac Newton.
Página 71 - It may be presumed to be sufficiently common in America, from a fact, or rather a calculation, given by Alexander Wilson. He estimated a flock which continued to pass above him for the greater part of a day to have been a mile in breadth and 240 miles in length, and to have contained (three birds being assigned to every square yard) at least two thousand two hundred and thirty millions, two hundred and seventytwo thousand pigeons...
Página 37 - In making this part of the coast, vessels are frequently met by snow-storms and gales which mock the seaman's strength and set at naught his skill. In a little while his bark becomes a mass of ice ; with her crew frosted and helpless, she remains obedient only to her helm, and is kept away for the Gulf Stream. After a few hours...
Página 67 - American black bear inhabits all the wooded districts from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Página 32 - Land, and thence continued along the meridian of that point to its intersection with the Antarctic Circle ; that the Pacific do extend from the Arctic Circle on the north to the Antarctic Circle on the south ; that its western limit be the east...