Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/132

 republics have a climate presenting the same contrasts with the returning seasons as that of West Europe, but in the reverse order, the winter of the Cape answering to the summer of the northern hemisphere. Although the Austral African seaboard corresponds in latitude almost exactly with Mauritania, Cyprus, and Syria, it has a much lower average temperature, which is identical with that of European towns lying some hundred miles farther from the equator. In the general distribution of climates the advantage lies with the northern regions, which receive a larger amount of heat, thanks to the unequal distribution of land and water, which causes the warmer aërial and marine currents to set rather in the direction of the northern than of the southern tropical zone.

Another circumstance tends to cool the extremity of Austral Africa compared with the Mediterranean regions under corresponding latitudes. A large section of its seaboard is turned towards the cold Antarctic Ocean, from which numerous icebergs and much drift ice often float with the marine current in the direction of the Cape.

But these marine currents which skirt the South African coasts are by no means of uniform character, and present on either side of the Cape a most