102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which., placed at the four points of the compass, beat their -wings 

 in alternation. The Assiniboins have a supreme deity, the mani- 

 tou-bird, who lives in the upper skies ; his eyes shoot out light- 

 ning, the beatings of his wings produce thunder, and his beak 

 causes the falling rain. Belief in a thunder-bird is also found 

 among the Brazilians, the Hervey-Islanders, the Caffres, and the 

 Karens of Burmah. Thor, who strikes men with his hammer, is 

 well known. In the Vedas, Par j ana is depicted as the god with 

 resounding song who beats down the forests and makes the earth 

 tremble ; who frightens the innocent, while he strikes down the 

 guilty ; who diffuses life, and at whose approach vegetation 

 springs up again. The Yorubas of western Africa fancy that 

 thunder is produced by the god Zaconta throwing stones. The 

 Slavs attribute the noise of thunder to the rolling of Elijah's 

 chariot in the skies. The legend of the celestial father playing 

 at ninepins with the porter of paradise is of common lore. The 

 classical .(^olus is matched by a similar conception among the 

 Iroquois and the Polynesians, by whom the winds are supposed 

 to be controlled by a divinity who holds them shut up in a cav- 

 ern, whence he lets them out at his will. A legend current in 

 New Zealand has it that each wind is assigned to its cavern, 

 where the god Maui lets them out, or shuts them up by rolling a 

 great stone in front of the mouth. But the west wind is excepted 

 from this rule ; the god can not reach it or find its cave, and it 

 therefore blows during the largest part of the year. The red In- 

 dians all believed in the spirit of the wind as the supreme god, 

 or the Great Spirit. In the Vedas, we find in turn Vdya, the 

 breath, Vdta, the breather, and Eoudra, the howler. The Estho- 

 nians direct their prayers to the mother of the winds, and exclaim 

 on the approach of a tempest : " The mother of the winds is groan- 

 ing ; who knows how many other mothers are going to groan in 

 their turn? " Sometimes the god of the wind becomes a mytho- 

 logical personage so distinct that we find it hard to discover his 

 natural character ; and it is still under discussion whether Her- 

 mes or Mercury personified the wind or the twilight. 



Whirlwinds or water-spouts have been personified under the 

 form of giants, of gigantic serpents, and of sea-dragons, as they 

 said in the middle ages. " The sea was troubled before them," 

 relates a character in the " Thousand and One Nights " ; " from its 

 bosom rose a black column toward the sky ; I looked, and it was 

 a Jinn of gigantic stature." This belief is common with all the 

 Mussulman peoples. The columns of sand in the desert pass, in 

 the eyes of the Arabs, for wicked genii. In China they believe 

 that these formations are dragons ; the Zulus make great ser- 

 pents of them. 



It is hard to conceive in temperate latitudes of the splendor of 



