peratures, and by excessive humidity and dense forests, an
exception to the last-named characteristic being the open llanos where
dry summers prevail. Above this tropical zone in the mountainous
regions are to be found all the varying gradations of climate which we
are accustomed to associate with changes in latitude. There are the
subtropical districts of the valleys and slopes between 1500 and 7500
ft. elevation, which include some of the most fertile and productive
areas in Colombia; the temperate districts between 7500 and 10,000
ft., the cold, bleak and inhospitable _paramos_ between 10,000 and
15,000 ft., and above these the arctic wastes of ice and snow. The
temperate and subtropical regions cover the greater part of the
departments traversed by the Eastern Cordillera, the northern end of
the Central Cordillera, the Santa Marta plateaus, and the Upper Cauca
Valley. They include the larger part of the white population and the
chief productive industries of the country. There is no satisfactory
record of temperatures and rainfall in these widely different climatic
zones from which correct averages can be drawn and compared.
Observations have been made and recorded at Bogota and at some other
large towns, but for the greater part of the country we have only
fragmentary reports. The mean annual temperature on the eastern
plains, so far as known, ranges from 87 deg. F. on the forested slopes
to 90 deg. and 91 deg. on the llanos of the Meta and Arauca. On the
Caribbean coastal plain it ranges from 80 deg. to 84 deg., but at
Tumaco, on the Pacific coast, within two degrees of the equator, it is
only 79 deg.. At Medellin, in the mountainous region of Antioquia,
4950 ft. above sea-level, the mean annual temperature is 70 deg., and
the yearly rainfall 55 in., while at Bogota, 8563 ft., the former is
57 deg. and the latter 44 in. At Tuquerres, near the frontier of
Ecuador, 10,200 ft. elevation, the mean annual temperature is said to
be 55 deg.. The changes of seasons are no less complicated and
confusing. A considerable part of the republic is covered by the
equatorial belt of calms, whose oscillations divide the year into a
wet and dry season. This division is modified, however, by the
location of mountain ranges and by elevation. In the Amazon region
there is no great change during the year, and on the northern plains
the so-called dry season is one of li