Читать книгу The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers - Various - Страница 146

The relative position of the land and water is an essential cause of this diversity. The waters of the ocean are of very equal temperature, and have a tendency to moderate both heat and cold, wherever their influence extends. Thus when a cold wind passes over the sea, it becomes warmed, while a hot wind becomes cooled; and thus islands generally experience milder winters and more temperate summers than continents. Such countries are said to possess an insular climate. But when any region experiences great severity of cold in winter and a high degree of heat in summer, it is said to possess an extreme or excessive climate. The most striking instances of an extreme climate are drawn from places like Yakutsk, situated in the depths of Siberia, where the difference between the average temperature of winter and summer amounts to the astonishing sum of 101 degrees Fahrenheit.

THE LIFE-GIVING SUN SENDING HEAT AND LIGHT

The sun is the great life-giver of our earth. Its waves of light and heat and electricity come to the earth through a measureless ocean of ether and make it a living rather than a dead world. The above illustration shows how these waves are constantly bombarding the earth, and not only giving it life but contributing to it the glory of the seasons, the wonders of color, and the brilliant effects of light which we see in the skies and call Auroras, or Northern and Southern Lights.

Large illustration (347 kB)