zones, in geography

The Sailor's Word-Book

, are longitudinal belts into which the surface of the earth is divided, according to their various relation to the sun's apparent motion. They are the torrid or equatorial zone, bounded by the two tropics (which see), to every part of which, at some time or other, the sun is vertical; the frigid zones, from the poles to the polar circles, to every part of which in succession, periodically, the sun is at mid-day below the horizon; and the temperate zones, intermediate between the two former, to all of which the sun rises every day in the year.

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