AMERICAN CLIMATE AND CHARACTER. 115 



of headlong service of the devil to which unregenerate, raw, brute 

 humanity can be tempted, are very much worse in England than they 

 are in America. And the air said to favor such characters is much 

 more found in England than in America. I was myself under the im- 

 pression, before I lived in England, that we had in America more elec- 

 trical excitement than is known in England. But now I find that it 

 shuts down on you more in England, and that while you see more in 

 America, at a great height above the earth, you feel more of it in 

 England, and have it dropping on you more ; and that, although 

 the climate is characteristically damp, there occur more and longer 

 times of irritating dryness and electrical aggravation than are known 

 in America. I am fortunately able to cite a testimony which will 

 make clear what I mean, and prove that I do not imagine my facts. 

 In " Nature " for September 9th, page 437, Professor Tait quotes from 

 an account given him by an Irish correspondent, who tells how the 

 dryness I speak of may come out of the same quarter from which at 

 other times moist air comes, and who expressly says that the same 

 dryness comes with the east wind which is such a curse to the British 

 Isles. Professor Tait's correspondent wrote as follows : 



" At the commencement of the present unprecedentedly long and 

 severe storm the wind blew from southwest, and was very warm. 

 After blowing about two days it became, without change of direction, 

 exceedingly bitter and cold, and the rain was from time to time mixed 

 with sleet and hail, and lightning was occasional. This special weath- 

 er is common for weeks together in March or early April. The air is 

 (like what an east wind brings in Edinburgh) cold, raw, dry, and in 

 every way uncomfortable, especially to people accustomed to the moist 

 Atlantic winds. During these weeks a series of small clouds seem to 

 start at regular intervals from the peaks of hills in Connemara and 

 Mayo. They are all more or less charged with electricity. I have at 

 one time seen such a cloud break into lightning over the spire of the 

 Jesuits' church. At another, I have seen such a cloud pour down in a 

 thin line of fire, and fall into the bay in the shape of a small, incan- 

 descent ball. On one occasion I was walking with a friend, when I 

 remarked : ' Let us turn and make a run for it. We have walked 

 unwittingly right underneath a little thunder-cloud.' I had scarcely 

 spoken, when a something flashed on the stony ground at our very 

 feet, a tremendous crash pealed over our heads, and the smell of sul- 

 phur was unmistakable." 



This sort of greater nearness of the electrical demonstrations is the 

 rule in Great Britain ; and the horrid dryness, rawness, and aggrava- 

 tion spoken of in the above account, as due to the east wind when 

 that blows, as it does for weeks together, and also due for weeks to- 

 gether to other wind, are a greater and a more grievous infliction in 

 Great Britain than anything known in America over the chief settled 

 region. 



