According To Von Buch, The Mean
Temperature Of July (Not The Hottest Month In The Year)
At Saltenfiord In Norway, Is As High As 57.8 Degs.,
And This Place Is Actually 13 Degs.
Nearer the pole
than Port Famine!
[8] Inhospitable as this climate appears
to our feelings evergreen trees flourish luxuriantly under
it. Humming-birds may be seen sucking the flowers, and
parrots feeding on the seeds of the Winter's Bark, in lat.
55 degs. S. I have already remarked to what a degree the
sea swarms with living creatures; and the shells (such as
the Patellae, Fissurellae, Chitons, and Barnacles),
according to Mr. G. B. Sowerby, are of a much larger size
and of a more vigorous growth, than the analogous species in
the northern hemisphere. A large Voluta is abundant in
southern Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. At
Bahia Blanca, in lat. 39 degs. S., the most abundant shells were
three species of Oliva (one of large size), one or two Volutas,
and a Terebra. Now, these are amongst the best characterized
tropical forms. It is doubtful whether even one
small species of Oliva exists on the southern shores of
Europe, and there are no species of the two other genera.
If a geologist were to find in lat 39 degs. on the coast of
Portugal a bed containing numerous shells belonging to three
species of Oliva, to a Voluta and Terebra, he would probably
assert that the climate at the period of their existence must
have been tropical; but judging from South America, such an
inference might be erroneous.
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