1864.J 363 [Lesley. 



system would have appeared in the log-book of the Canada, in the 

 voyage under discussion. 



Such a waved line crossing and recrossing the wake of the Canada, 

 twelve times in eight days, would graphically represent the forward 

 movement of the winds encountered. Theoretically, it would repre- 

 sent one of two things : either, 1st, a horizontal libration of the 

 fronts of successive masses of condensed atmosphere moving mag- 

 netic east, or north of east; a supposition which 'I imagine no me- 

 teorologist would accept for a moment; or, 2d, a system of curves 

 belonging to the southern sides of six small cyclones, following each 

 other along a line not quite parallel to the course of the ship, and to 

 the north of it, close to it at the western end, and diverging from it 

 eastward. 



I say small cyclones, because when we landed at Halifax the in- 

 habitants spoke with delight of the lovely weather the people of Nova 

 Scotia and Newfoundland had been enjoying for more than a fort- 

 night. A glance at the map will show, therefore, the small radius to 

 be ascribed to the gales through which we had been fighting slowly 

 our way. We must consider it therefore probable that these gales, 

 however vortical in build, belong to a different system of disturbances 

 from the periodical storms of immense radial sweep which travel 

 along the Atlantic coast inland in the same direction. 



The next important point to be observed, is the fact of the sudden 

 commencement of the system on the west, at longitude 45° west 

 from Greenwich, that is, where the ship's course ran out of the Gulf 

 Stream and approached the Banks. That we did not cut across the 

 axis of the system, is plain, from the fact that no soutlieast or north- 

 east winds were encountered. Otherwise it would be easy to con- 

 sider this system of gales as attached by some law to the northern 

 margin of the Gulf Stream, at least as to their common axis of for- 

 ward movement. But unless the series of gales had exhausted itself 

 precisely at the moment when we reached longitude 45°, or actually 

 commenced at that longitude, it must be allowed that the Canada 

 then and there sailed under the system; which, in that case, must be 

 regarded as descending from some region to the southwest, and in the 

 upper strata of the atmosphere, and impinging at that point upon the 

 surface of the sea, thence, continuing forward, at that level, to the 

 coast of Ireland. 



Whether this be the best view or not, it is remarkable that these 

 violent disturbances are popularly confined to one particular season of 

 the year. Captain Moody, on consulting the record log-book of the 



