TEMPERATI'RE. The mean annual temperature in Asia reduced to sea-le•el, decreases uninte• ruptedly from about 90° F. at the south to 0° at the north. on the eastern coast the decrease in temperature, with increase in latitude, is some what slower than in the interior, but on the whole the isotherms follow the parallels quite closely, especially in the southern half of Asia. The isotherm of crosses eastward from Arch angel with a slightly southerly bend, to the month of the Amur. On the western side of Asia. the temperatures decrease from 72° at Suez to 14° at the northern end of the lira) :Mountains. On the mast there is a decrease from 78' in Siam to 10° at Bering Strait. The region of greatest cold is near Verkhoyansk, in Siberia. on the Yana River, but a short. distance north of the Arctic Circle, be tween the meridians of 130° and 140° E.
The average temperatures for January de crease from about. SO° at the south of the con tinent to —55° in the neighborhood of Ve•kho yansk, whence there is an increase to —40° on the coast. From Ve•khoyansk, the centre of cold, the temperature rises in all directions; westward along the Arctic coast to —4° at the northern end of the Urals, and eastward to —13° at Ber ing Strait. On the western side of the continent the temperature decreases from 57° at Suez to —4° in the northern Urals. On the eastern coast the temperature decreases from about 80° at the south to —13° a4. Bering Strait. The isotherms
in the northern part of the eontinent swing far to the south in the interior, showing much lower temperatures there than on the coasts in winter. The isotherm of 32 runs nearly clue east from the middle of the Caspian Sea to the middle of the Yellow Sea, showing in this latitude little dif ference in winter temperatures between the coast and the interior. Throughout the greater part of northern Asia the .January temperatures are more than 18° below the normal for those latitudes, and at Verkhoyansk it is .47° below' normal, owing to the distance from the sea and_ its influences.
In July, the highest temperature is on the Ara bian and Persian plateaus, where the average is 93°; from this section there is a fall to 82° in southern India, southern Siam, and southern China, and toward the north and east, to 39° throughout most of the Arctic coast. The maxi mum temperature of the whole continent ranges from 120° in Persia and Arabia, to 75° on the northern coast, and in the northern interior it reaches 100°. The minimum ranges from about 65° in the extreme south, to —5S° on the north ern coast, hut in the neighborhood of Verkho yansk, in the interior of northeastern Asia, a temperature of 9'2° below zero has been observed.