Causes ofccHain W'mds and Storms. 169 



were improper to say there is any trade-wind, or yet a variable 

 one, for it seems condemned to perpetual calms, attended with 

 terrible thunder, lightning and rains, so frequent that our navi- 

 gators, from them, call this part of the sea the Rains ; the little 

 winds they have are only some sudden uncertain gusts of very 

 short continuance and less extent, so that sometimes each hour 

 there is a different gale, which dies away into a calm before 

 another succeeds ; and in a fleet of ships in sight of one another, 

 each will have the wind from a different point of the compass. 

 With these weak breezes, ships are obliged to make the best of 

 their way to the southward, through the aforesaid 6°, wherein 

 it is reported some have been detained whole months for want 

 of wind *." 



Instead, however, of being confined to these longitudes, it 

 would appear that either a total cessation or a remission of the 

 force of the trades is observed between the latitudes specified 

 throughout nearly the whole extent of both the Atlantic arid 

 Pacific : the effect being, however, more distinctly marked and 

 perceptible in the former than in the latter ocean. A few quo- 

 tations are given ; it would be easy to add largely to their num- 

 ber. 



" The southern trade-wind being cooler in like latitudes than 

 the northern, usually passes the equinoctial into the northern 

 hemisphere. The northern trade-wind falls considerably short 

 of it, as earlier attaining the maximum of heat. Between them 

 is the region of variable winds, light airs and calms, attended 

 vsdth frequent squalls and rain ; an uncertain wavy zone lying 

 between the times of their influence. It is the tract in which 

 the highest temperature prevails throughout the year ; not at 

 the equinoxes only, the sun being then vertical, but also when 

 he is distant at the tropics. In this warm and damp region of 

 the middle Atlantic, situated in the vicinity of the equator -f-," 

 Sec. 



" After a most rapid run of several days, we reached the 

 * swamp^ as the captain calls the calm and rainy latitudes, be- 

 tween the north-east and south-east trade-winds, a few degrees 

 north of the equator— clouds and tempests seem gathered before 



• Philosophical Transactions for 1686. 



t Colebrooke's Meteorological Observations in a Voyage across the Atlan- 

 tic, in Brande's Journal. 



