AMERICA, a general term given to the countries in South and Central America; especially those whose in habitants come of Latin linguistic stock.
These include inhabitants of Mexico and certain islands of the West Indies. The term HISPANIC AMERICA has also come into use, embracing both the Portuguese-American inhabitants of Brazil and the Spanish-American inhabitants of other countries of Central and South America, as descendants of natives of the Iberian Peninsula, which under Roman domination was called, as a whole, Hispania. From this point of view the Hispanic Society of America, New York City, the periodicals Hispania and Hispanic American Historical Review, all three deal with matters both Portuguese- and Spanish-Amer ican. Special information will be found in this section under the following heads: Latin America distinguishes as a group 20 American republics, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pan ama, Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela. In a still larger sense, but less accurately, as a general term it designates all of the central and southern portions of the New World, continental and insular as well, between the United States and Cape Horn. The total area of the 20 Latin American re publics is about 8,150,000 to 8,200,000 square miles and the aggregate population of the same countries not less than 75,000,000. In each the language of the ruling class is Spanish, except in Brazil, where it is Portuguese, and in Haiti, where it is French or a patois called ucreole.x' But in the central regions of the Western Hem isphere are about 205,000 or 206,000 square miles with 3,190,000 to 3,200,000 inhabitants not in cluded in any of the Latin American republics. They are held as dependencies by Great Britain, Holland, France or the United States; and to denominate these dependencies ((Latin Ameri would be misleading.
A few facts may serve to supplement de scriptions in the articles devoted to South America, Central America, Panama, Mexico and the West Indies; to each of the above mentioned republics, and to their political sub divisions.
Readings of the thermometer, as set down in notes of travel in Latin America, are: At Montevideo, Uruguay, 18 June, 54° F. at 11 A.m.; Buenos Aires, Argentina, 4 July, 52° F. at 3 P.M. But the average of these two, namely, 53° F., was recorded on the west coast of South America as the lowest figure the mer cury reached during the cold season at Lima which lies so much nearer than do Buenos Aires and Montevideo to the equator that its range of temperatures would be decidedly higher were it not for the influence of the cold Humboldt current. In the article CHILE ref erence at greater length is made to this cur rent, which is a truly beneficent river of the ocean, constantly tempering and stabilizing the climate along the Pacific coast, flowing north ward and then northwestward along that coast until headlands below the equatorial line throw it straight out to sea, to cool one side of the Galapagos Islands. That is one of the big facts about the climate among others in the same field. • At the confluence of the Paraguay and Alto Parana rivers, 25 July, the thermometer showed 80° F. in the shade at 10 A.M., and about noon
of the same day on the Paraguay River 92° F. in the shade; at Asuncion, Paraguay, 27 July, 84° F. in the shade; in the same city, 28 July, 78° F. at 9 A.M. The circumstance that Asun cion is built on a hill counts for much. Com paring these observations, made in regions re mote from the ocean, with observations at moderate altitudes above the Atlantic coast, a striking difference is noticed immediately. Thus, on the road from the Brazilian port of Santos to Sao Paulo, 14 August, the thermom eter showed only 62° F. at 2 P.M., and in the city of Sao Paulo, 15 August, 61° F. as the average of the forenoon. At Rio de Janeiro (nearly at sea-level), 19 August, we find 72° F. in the afternoon, but only F. at 7-8 A.m., 20 August; and, as the record for the warmest day of that °winter° season in Rio, 84° F. at 3-4 P.M. A short distance away, at Petropolis among the mountains, we note 63° F. at 7 A.M.; and at an elevation of 1,500 feet above Rio, in the tropical forest clothing the flanks of Corcovado, 29 August, 60° F. at 7 A.M. The fact thus illustrated is, simply, that regions sufficiently elevated to receive quite di rectly the cool and saturated ocean breezes have, even in these latitudes near the Tropic of Capricorn, a climate not given to extremes but favorable to man and vegetation alike. Again, near the Atlantic coast in lat. 1° 52' S., long. 38° 45' W. we read 84° F. at 11 A.M. ; in lat. 1° 13' N., long. 43° 51' W., 86° F. at 12, noon, to 1 P.M.; in lat. 8° N., long. 53° 48' W, 85° F. at 2 P.M. The highest temperatures (in the shade) observed at the equator near the Pacific or Atlantic coasts, either at sea or where the ocean influence controls-85° or scarcely more than 86° F.— must be called quite moderate. (See comment on this subject in the article BRAZIL). In the corresponding re gions north of the equator, near the Tropic of Cancer, we appreciate, or resent, most promptly the development of intolerable degrees of heat in regions that are enclosed and far from the sea. For example, we notice en route Oaxaca, Mexico, to Puebla, 14 March, 100° F. in the otherwise comfortable cars of a train running through a valley. It is necessary to remember that the Antillean regions (see CENTRAL AMER ICA) look out, on one side at least, upon a com paratively restricted and nearly bisected Amer ican Mediterranean, not upon the ocean which plays the part we have mentioned all along the South American cast coast; that the trade winds and the Gulf stream visit some portions of this interpolated continental area assidu ously, but are as constantly deflected from other portions; and, partly for this reason, each subdivision of the vast, varied and most interesting Antillean region is the subject of a special study. (See the separate titles). Pan ama, occupying the narrow space between two oceanic elbows, has, as shown by observations in a sheltered building near the centre of the capital during the year, an equatorially limited range of temperatures — from 76° F. to 88° F. But places shut in, even parts of the city of Panama itself, because they lie nearly at sea level, may have 100° F. thrust upon them when the air-currents from ocean to ocean are inter rupted temporarily.