ORDEALS AND OATHS. 307 



the northward, where it slopes more gradually beneath the inclined 

 plane of meeting, as above explained. 



For obvious reasons, the region of high barometer is within the 

 polar current before it meets the tropical, and also within the tropical 

 current before it is disturbed, or its horizontal movement checked by 

 meeting the polar current ; but the barometer is highest in the polar 

 current, because it is colder and denser. 



In addition to the foregoing facts which barometric observations 

 have established, this theory of opposing currents explains a great 

 many other aerial problems and phenomena which have not heretofore 

 been adequately accounted for. Among these are the real causes of 

 different kinds of storms and how they originate ; why they move for- 

 ward and backward, carrying the lines and areas of high and low 

 barometer, of isobars and gradients, with them, and why they cease ; 

 why the barometer indicates the approach of some storms in advance, 

 but is useless in others ; why it falls in some storms but rises in others ; 

 why a progressive storm travels against the prevailing wind, and why 

 the wind changes during its progress ; why there is a region of calm, 

 and why the wind is stronger around this region of calm. It explains 

 how snow-storms change to rain, or sleet and rain, and why it falls 

 obliquely toward the direction from which the storm is coming; also 

 why in some storms the rain falls in advance of the area of low barome- 

 ter and in the rear of it in others. It accounts for the origin of torna- 

 does, water-spouts, hail-storms, and all other whirling storms, and 

 explains why these always move in an eastward direction on our con- 

 tinent. It explains why the rain-areas of winter storms are more ex- 

 tended than those of summer, why their approach is slower and their 

 continuance longer, and why they produce sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture in their progress over any place. It greatly simplifies and cor- 

 rects previous explanations respecting the formation of different kinds 

 of clouds, and accounts for the development of electricity both in 

 summer and in winter storms. 



-*- 



ORDEALS AND OATHS. 



By EDWAKD B. TYLOB. 



IK primitive stages of society, the clannish life of rude tribes may 

 well have been more favorable to frank and truthful relations be- 

 tween man and man than our wider and looser social intercourse can 

 be. Yet one can see, from the habits of modern savages, that already 

 in early savage times society was setting itself to take measures 

 against men who broke faith to save themselves from harm or to 

 gain some coveted good. At the stage of civilization where social 



