Southern Hemisphere

“ The northern hemisphere offers the largest advantages for the habitation of man, and significantly enough, contains a population five times that of the southern hemisphere. The latter, on the other hand, with its vast, unbroken water areas, has been the great oceanic highway for circum-mundane exploration and trade. ”

“ The northern hemisphere, which stretches from the equinoctual to the Arctic Pole, contains all which has been hitherto discovered and peopled in Asia, Europe and the chief part of Africa. The remaining half, or southern hemisphere, which reaches from the equinoctial to the Antarctic Pole, comprises part of what we call America, and the whole of that Austral Land, the discovery and apostolic conquest of which is now treated of. ”

“ In the Southern Hemisphere there appear to have been three considerable and very ancient land masses, varying in extent from time to time, but always keeping distinct from each other, and represented, more or less completely, by Australia, South Africa, and South America of our time. ”

“ Now, if we except from this southern hemisphere all that there is of Africa lying between the equinoctial line and the Cape of Good Hope, and all that there is of Peru from the parallel of the said equinoctial line, which passes near Quito, down to the straits of Magellan, and that small portion of land which lies to the south of the strait, all the rest of the firm land of the said southern hemisphere remains to be discovered. Thus of the whole globe, there is little less than one entire half which remains to be discovered, and to have the gospel preached in it ”

“ There is no evidence that it is so growing, and the inference that it is seems inadmissible. In fact, the southern hemisphere radiates less heat than the northern, though it receives as much from the sun. ”

“ Chili, Buenos Ayres, the southern part of Brazil, and Peru, enjoy the cool summers and mild winters of a true insular climate, owing to the narrowness and contraction of the continent towards the south. This advantage of the Southern Hemisphere is manifested as far as 48° or 50° south lat., but beyond that point, and nearer the Antarctic Pole, South America is an inhospitable waste. The different degrees of latitude at which the southern extremities of Australia, including Van Diemen’s Island, of Africa, and America, terminate, give to each of these continents its peculiar character. ”

“ The heat is, of course, great, though less great than a traveller from North Africa or India expects to find in such a latitude. Owing to the vast mass of water in the southern hemisphere, that hemisphere is cooler in the same latitude than is the northern. ”

“ In the southern hemisphere there is, as you know, a larger proportion of sea than in that of the north; and thus it serves as a reservoir to supply those spots which would otherwise be arid deserts, with an abundant supply of the chief necessary of life. The whole of nature is full of similar beautiful arrangements for making the globe a convenient habitation for man, clearly to be perceived if men would but open their eyes to behold them. ”

“ A glacial period in the southern hemisphere would probably always be less severe than in the northern, because of the great preponderance of sea over land in the southern half of the globe. An ocean climate is more equable than a land climate. ”

“ Proteaceæ are chiefly natives of the Southern hemisphere, in which they are most abundant in a parallel included between 32° and 35° lat. but they extend as far as 55° S. lat. The few species found in the Northern hemisphere occur within the tropic. ”

“ It was not therefore strange that the imagination of geographers ran riot amongst the great unknown areas. They were impressed, as they looked at the globes of the day, with the fact that, while the northern hemisphere contained much land, the southern showed either water or blank spaces; and starting with the ill-founded idea that the solid land in either hemisphere should balance, they conceived that there must be a great unknown continent in the southern part of the Pacific to make up the deficiency. ”

“ And thus in those zones which are generally cold, there are some parts that are milder and very free from the severity of the cold. And if particular consideration be given to the influences produced on temperature by the constellations belonging to the southern hemisphere it will be found that there are lands in it, not only habitable, but much more so than in the other hemisphere ”

“ Migration from North to South has been long going on.—Now, if each phase of colder and warmer mountain-climate—each alternate depression and elevation of the snow-line, only helped on the migration of a few species some stages of the long route from the north to the south temperate regions, yet, during the long course of the Tertiary period there might well have arisen that representation of the northern flora in the southern hemisphere which is now so conspicuous. ”

“ It is only at the Southern extremity of this hemisphere that sea and water are predominant; and here a continuous chain of islands from the southernmost point of Asia reaches to the fifth and last portion of the globe—Australia, making it a sort of Asiatic dependency. In the American hemisphere, the element of water is predominant, not only at the Southern extremity, but towards the middle; for, large as America may be, it can bear no comparison with the other continents in respect to extent of surface. ”

“ Do not Kamtchatka and Korea, Arabia and the Indian Peninsula all point south? South America, Africa, and Australia are drawn out into wedges narrowing southwards. They are like stalactites in a grotto. But however much you may puzzle over the globe, and however much you may question learned men, you will never know why the earth's surface has assumed exactly the form it has and no other.
On another occasion you may remark that Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia lie in an almost continuous curve in the eastern hemisphere, while America has the western hemisphere all to itself. ”

“ From the towering mountains that guarded the entry, tempests of wind and snow swept down upon the "daring intruders." As they made their way through the rough and winding waters, they imagined with all the other geographers of their time that the unknown land to the south was one great continent leading beyond the boundaries of the world. Fires lit by the natives on this southern coast added terror to the wild scene. ”

“ Farther to the south, beyond the twenty-fifth to the thirty-fifth parallels of latitude, there begin again to appear, in South America, in South Africa, Southern Australia, and New Zealand, terraced lands like those of the north, the same excess of negative movements, the same signs of oscillation, as in the north. The gradual tendency to a higher exposure of the land toward both poles has been noticed in single large tracts by many observers in North America, in England, Scotland, Scandinavia, China, Australia, and South America. ”

“ Indeed, such is the inequality in the distribution of land over the surface of the globe that the world may be divided into hemispheres consisting, the one with almost all the land in it, except Australia and a slip of America lying south of a line drawn from the desert of Atacama to Uruguay; England is the centre of this, the dry hemisphere. The other, or aqueous hemisphere, contains all the great waters except the Atlantic Ocean; New Zealand is the nearest land to its centre. ”