Mediterranean seaports and sea routes including Madeira, the Canary Islands, the coast of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia : handbook for travellers / by Karl Baedeker.

Karl Baedeker

Date:: 1911

Credit: Mediterranean seaports and sea routes including Madeira, the Canary Islands, the coast of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia : handbook for travellers / by Karl Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

39/786 page 35

$Russia is now llie chief export from Odessa to London and Ant- werp, so, from the 14th century onwards, quantities of Russian caviare were hroujjjht hy Italian merchants from Kaffa to Rru^es, which was then one of the world’s greatest markets. The Climate of the Mediterranean is very equable. In every age northerners have been attracted by the mildness of the win- ters, when the occiisional storms and heavy rains arc of short duration and are soon succeeded by bright sunshine. The heat of summer is tempered everywhere, especially on the more southern coasts, by refreshing sea-breezes. The farther south one goes, the longer the dry season lasts. .\t Tripoli, for example, it lasts for seven months and at Alexandria for ten. The subtropical maximum air-pressure over the eastern Atlantic, by which rainfall and wind- movements are determined, is usually continued in winter past the southern limit of the Mediterranean (comp. p. 29), thus bringing the whole of that sea within the zone of the changeable and rainy winds of Central Europe. In summer the pressure lies farther to the north, producing in most parts of tlie ^lediterranean steady northerly currents of air. The climate is tempered also by the warmth of the sea itself. The bar at the west entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar (j). xxi.x) keeps out the C(dd water of tlie deep .Atlantic, but allows the influx of the warmer surface-water to compensate for what the Mediterranean loses by evajtoration. This loss would otherwise amount to a depth of 19-1;) ft. per annum. The influx of water from the .Atlantic causes a current to flow along the North .African coast from west to cast, but its thermal effects are soon lost. In summer the surface of the Mediterranean is heated hy the sun up to 7;')-iS2° Fahr.; but the temperature diminishes rapidly down to a depth of about 1000 feet, where it reaches a uniform minimum corresponding with the surface temperature of February, the coolest mouth in the year. This in the north-western basin is Fahr. only, and in the south-eastern it siitflces to temper the cold winds of winter, while additional warmth is brought from time to time by the hot sirocco from the interior of .Africa (comp. p. ;}21). It may be stated generally that the winter temper- ature on the Mediterranean averages 14® Fahr. above that of almost all other regions in the same latitude. The warmest ])laces are of course those on the coasts facing the south and sheltered from the north, while the average temperature rises gradually from south- east to north-west. The Vegetation is rich and varied. Evergreens abound, being better able to stand the long droughts than deciduous trees and shrubs. .Amons: the forest-trees in the warmer rejiions the com- monest are pines, including stone-pines, and oaks of the evergreen and other varieties. The underwood (tnacchia, mafjnln, or (^nr- rigue, Grk. phrggana) is composed of mastic-bushes (I’istacia$