Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/507

Rh The following principal cities and places in the world are antipodal

Antipodal places have the same climate, with all of the seasons, days, and nights, completely reversed. When it is noon in London, it is midnight at Antipodes Island; and the noon of the longest day at the Bermudas is midnight of the shortest day at Swan River. When the sun is rising at New York, it is setting on the South Indian Ocean.

Antipodes Island, a small strip of land in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of New Zealand, is so called because it is the nearest inhabitable point to the antipodes of Greenwich, latitude 49° 32' south, longitude 178° 42' east.

We said that the seasons at the antipodes were reversed. Take, for example, New Zealand, which is nearly antipodal to England. New Zealand has one of the finest climates in the world. The summer is a little longer and warmer than in England, the atmosphere more moist, and fogs are frequent. Spring begins in September, summer in December, autumn in April, and winter in June. January and February are the warmest months of the year, while July is the coldest. The flowers bloom in January, and the snow falls in June.

So, in a figurative sense, antipodes means opposite. As Shakespeare says, or makes one of his characters to say, in the play:



TILITY does not require to be defined. Nevertheless, an explanation of it may be profitable.

Many years have elapsed since man appeared on the earth. Geologists affirm that, before our appearance, this little globe moved round the sun for thousands and thousands of ages. During that period the soil, the sea, and the air, were of no benefit to anybody, because no one existed here below. A multitude of plants and animals was