WEATHER FREAKS OF THE WEST INDIES. 789 

 WEATHER FREAKS OF THE WEST INDIES. 



By F. L. OSWALD. 



AUDITED STATES army officer, wlio describes the trials of 

 garrison life in the far Southwest, remarks that the valley of 

 the Rio Gila, though an inferno of dyspeptics, would be a paradise 

 of weather observers, as they could stereotype their reports for a year 

 in advance, and then go to sleep, merely leaving instructions to be 

 waked at the approach of the one annual rain shower. 



With a similar precaution for a possible lucid interval of showers, 

 certain districts of western Oregon might enable an employee of the 

 Signal Bureau to indulge at least the luxury of hibernation; but with 

 every mile farther east the use of stereotypes would become more 

 precarious, and the busiest American colleague of those Pacific sine- 

 curists would probably be a " forecast manager," stationed on the 

 southeast coast of Cuba. 



Weather changes depend upon a variety of local conditions, modi- 

 fied by external infiuences, and on the two main islands of the West 

 Indies the aggregate of those factors is complex indeed. A number 

 of densely wooded mountain ranges, varying from low hill chains to 

 Alplike sierras, alternate with arid plains and reeking jungles, and 

 air currents from the eight principal points of the compass are apt to 

 cause as many different modifications of humidity and temperature. 



These imported meteorological tendencies have often to be taken 

 into account to explain the curious weather freaks of special districts. 

 The almost infallible visitations of cold waves that interrupt the 

 summer heat of our Atlantic coast States about the beginning of 

 July have been ascribed to the transit of iceberg chains drifting 

 southward after the melting of their arctic moorings; but in the 

 province of Santiago de Cuba these cooling and even chilling 

 breezes come from the southwest, and have been traced to a reduction 

 of temperature caused by the tremendous rainfalls in the coast forests 

 of Honduras and Yucatan. 



Straight west winds, on the other hand, often raise the mercury 

 thirty degrees above the average of the summer season. The Gulf 

 of Mexico has failed to neutralize the sirocco breath of the burning 

 sand wastes flanking the valley of the Rio Grande. In the coast 

 towns of Puerto Principe southern breezes may cool a midsummer 

 night sufficiently to drive the natives from their house-top dormi- 

 tories, and make foreigners supplement the scant bed cover of their 

 posada with the contents of the dry -goods trunk; but the next night 

 the northward shifting of the sea wind will illustrate the wisdom of 

 the architect who has crowned the conveniences of the dwelling house 



