THE WINDS 



it the crews would sacrifice some or even all of the 

 horses — overboard the poor creatures had to go, to swim 

 vainly for a while near the becalmed ships and then 

 drown. Seen as the light fades at eventide, charging 

 towards us across the ocean's surface, the white-crested 

 waves — often called "white horses" — remind us of 

 those tragic happenings in the horse latitudes of years 

 ago. 



The British Isles lie in the region of the westerly winds, 

 which moderate the severity of our winters, owing to the 

 fact that the winds have to cross comparatively warm 

 stretches of the Atlantic. When the westerlies fail, which 

 can happen for various reasons, this country can be 

 invaded by cold easterly winds from across Europe. In 

 happier circumstances the horse latitudes (following the 

 sun northwards) can extend their calmer influence to 

 our coasts and bring us dry ''Mediterranean" weather. 



But the westerly winds can be as pitiless as the easterly 

 ones, though in different ways. When they lash the 

 Atlantic to fury they can do considerable damage along 

 Britain's coasts — as they did in the terrible gales of 1824, 

 when gigantic waves tossed five-ton lumps of stone over 

 Plymouth breakwater as though they were children's 

 building blocks. 



The winds of the world can be as gentle as little 

 children or as malevolently violent as bloodthirsty 

 giants. 



In the northern hemisphere, the warm, moist north- 

 ward-flowing winds encounter cool ones from the wide 

 expanses of Siberia in a zone which lies just ofifthe coast of 

 Asia over the Pacific Ocean. This causes a vast south-west 

 to north-east disturbance, long known as the "Asiatic 

 jet". As a result storms originate in the zone about 

 every three days which pass on a rhythmic motion to the 

 overlying westerlies. These troughs and crests of pressure, 

 resembling sea-waves, move towards North America, but 

 before they reach it they are reinforced by disturbances 



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