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Q. What causes a land breeze?

A. The land which has been heated by the sun during the day loses its temperature during the night. The air, therefore, over the land gets cooled, while the sea, and consequently the air over it, retains a temperature nearly even at all times. Thus after sunset a land

breeze blows off the shore.

Q. What are the monsoons?

A. They are winds which blow periodically, or at stated periods, in the Indian Ocean.

Q. In what direction do they blow?

A. Northward from the third degree of south latitude up to the northern shores of the Indian Ocean, they blow from the south-west from April to October, and from October to April they blow from the north-east.

Q. In what direction do the monsoons blow between the third and tenth degrees of south latitude?

A. From October to April they blow from the north-west, and from April to October they blow from the south-east.

Q. What is observable with respect to the north-east and south-east monsoons, which are found blowing, the one on the north, and the other on the south side of the equator?

A. That they are nothing more than the trade winds blowing for six months, and then succeeded for the remainder of the year by winds directly opposite.

Q. What causes the south-west monsoon?

A. As before stated, it blows from the third degree of south latitude up to the northern shores of the Indian Ocean, when the sun is perpendicular to those regions. The air then becomes rarefied by the excessive heat caused by that luminary, and ascends. Colder air then rushes in from the Indian Ocean to supply its place, which produces a south-west wind.

Q. What causes the north-west monsoon in the southern hemisphere?

A. The air over New Holland, being rarefied by the presence of the sun, rises, and a north-west wind from the Indian ocean rushes in to supply its place.

Q. What wind prevails in the Indian Ocean between the tenth and twentyeighth degrees of south latitude?

A. The south-east trade wind.
Q. What are hurricanes?

A. They are violent agitations of the air. They take place in the vicinity of lands or islands near the tropics, and are frequently very destructive.

Q. What is meant by the term climate?

A. The state of the atmosphere as regards warmth or cold, dryness or mois

ture.

Q. What circumstances influence the climate of a place?

A. 1. Its latitude or distance from the equator. 2. Its elevation, or height above the level of the sea. 3. Its distance from the sea. 4. The quarter towards which the country slopes. 5. The position and direction of its mountain chains. 6. The nature of its soil. 7. The degree of cultivation and improvement at which the country has arrived. 8. The prevalent winds.

Q. In how many classes or kingdoms are natural productions arranged?

A. Into three-1. The mineral. 2. The vegetable. 3. The animal kingdom. Q. What does the mineral kingdom contain?

2.

A. 1. All earths and stones. Mineral combustibles. 3. Salts; and 4. Metals.

Q. What does the vegetable kingdom contain?

A. All trees, shrubs, and plants, whether in the ocean or on the land.

Q. What does the animal kingdom contain?

A. All living creatures, as-1. Quadrupeds. 2. Bipeds. 3. Fowls.

4.

Fishes. 5. Reptiles. 6. Insects. 7. Worms.

ASTRONOMY.

Q. What is astronomy?

A. Astronomy is that science which treats of the sizes, distances, and motions of the heavenly bodies.

Q. What is the appearance of the heavenly bodies to a person standing on the surface of the earth?

A. They appear to be placed on the inside of a vast sphere.

Q. What is a sphere?

A. A body of which the centre is at the same distance from every point of the outside of the body.

Q. Is the appearance which the heavenly bodies present to us correct?

A. No; for some of them are at a very much greater distance from the earth than others.

Q. Which of the heavenly bodies is situate nearest to the earth?

A. The moon.

Q. How far distant is the moon?

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