CLIMATE AND SOIL. Spain has almost a con tinental climate notwithstanding the great length of its coast line. The range of temperature be tween summer and winter and the diurnal varia tions are great and rapid. Spain has often been misconceived as a land of eternal spring, in which groves of olives and oranges thrive. The climatic conditions adapted for these fruits are found, however, only in the coast districts, and in Anda lusia, in the extreme south, and Galicia in the northwest. The summers of the tableland are so hot that nearly all the rivers are dried up and the earth becomes so parched and unproductive that whole villages are sometimes compelled to migrate. The nearness to the Sahara, across the narrow Mediterranean, ex poses the southern part of the country to in tense heat. On the other hand, the height of the tableland causes the winter temperature to be low. At Madrid, in the centre of the peninsula, there is often skating in winter, although in sum mer the temperature may rise to 107° F. in the shade, making the climate of Madrid the most extreme in Western Europe. On the southern
coast. by contrast, the mean temperature in .Janu ary is 55°, and frost and snow are extremely rare. The mean temperature at Malaga, on the south coast, is in summer 77° and in wittier at Barcelona, in the northeast, on the Mediterra nean, the summer and winter means are respec tively 77° and 50°, and at Madrid, in the centre, 75° and 44.6°. The climate is also one of the driest in Europe, and has been made still drier by the destruction of the forests. The rainfall is very small, only 8 to 12 inches per annum in the interior. The evil of deficient precipitation is increased by the fact that, as in all Mediterra nean lands, the largest rainfall is in the winter months after the growing season. Irrigation is, therefore, the basis of agriculture. The soils need only moisture to make them very fertile. The hot south wind of Andalusia, known as the Solano, and the cold north wind, called the Gal lego, are peculiar to Spain.