

254 Proximate Causes of certain Winds and Storms. 



tiinating the amount of movement in the atmosphere by the time 

 during which it occurs. 



(/.) "The north winds (los nortes,) which are north west winds, 

 blow in the gulf of Mexico from the the autumnal to the spring equi- 

 nox. These north wind hurricanes generally remain for three or 

 four days and sometimes for ten or twelve."* 



(g.) If there be a predominance of either northerly or southerly 

 winds in the North Pacific Ocean, it is not such as to have attracted 

 the particular attention of navigators. " On the north west coast oi 

 America from the straits of Behring to 30° of northern latitude, the 

 winds are variable. Capt. Cook found in March, in the 44th degree 

 of latitude, a fresh and constant north west, which continued until 

 the beginning of summer with the exception of a south east, which 

 lasted however, only six hours, and La Perouse, Portlock and Dixon 

 did not experience the south winds in the summer. According to 

 Vancouver and the Spanish navigators, the north and north west are 

 the most prevailing. (Krusenstern.) All this however applies, al- 

 most exclusively, to the summer months. During the winter, Messrs. 

 Lewis and Clarke at the mouth of the Columbia River, had long 

 continued gales from the S. W. and deluges of rain. 



(A.) The violent winds that prevail at Cape Horn are not accu- 

 rately from the west point, but from some other between the west 

 and south. "I cannot in any case, concur in recommending the 

 running into the latitude of 61° or 62° before any endeavor is made 

 to stand to the westward. We found neither the current nor the 

 storms, which the running so far to the southward is supposed neces- 



f> 



thai quarter, it is scarcely possible to pursue the advice "f 



{i-) Cook's voyages into the high latitudes of the southern hem- 

 isphere being made when the sun was in the neighborhod of the 

 southern tropic, cannot be referred to as affording information of un- 

 questionable accuracy respecting the winds that prevail in those seas. 

 IV. Thunderstorms generally commence between mid-day and sun- 

 set, and move from west to east.t 



Humboldt's New Spain, Book I, Chap. 2. See also Poinsett's Mexico. i« regard 



to the violence of these winds. 



t Cook, in Hawkesworth's Voyage^, Vol.2. See .loClavion^ account of- Ac 



Falkland islands quoted abovt 



X In an easterly direction, not in the plane of the pris vertical. 



