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On the prevailing Storms of the Atlantic Coast. 31 
variable winds, tending back to the north-east in the temperate lati- 
tudes. ‘This prevalence of these compensating winds is so uniform 
as to occasion an average difference of seventeen days in favor of 
the eastern passage of packet ships engaged in the European trade. 
Even in England they have two hundred and twenty five days of 
westerly wind to one hundred and forty days of an easterly direction, 
and if our view of the easterly storms be correct, this tendency is 
more general and uniform than has hitherto been supposed, most of 
the other winds being, in that case, but irregular modifications of the 
westerly or returning trade wind. ‘The prevailing effect upon the 
North American coast, during most parts of the year is that of a 
south-westerly wind, but becoming more westerly as we a 
northwa 
This panceed current of atmosphere is often qualified in its direc- 
tion, and acted upon obliquely by the more western and north-western 
land winds. ‘These several winds or modifications of the same gen- 
eral current, often prevail in stratified currents overlaying each other, 
the most western of these currents forming generally the upper stra- 
tum. Itis probable, as already suggested, that these winds are but 
the recoiling, or returning masses of the trades which penetrate to 
the bottom of the gulf of Mexico, the superior strata of which may 
be sent back from the most western points of the horizon from the 
highest barrier which is found in the great Mexican elevations, or 
even the Chippewayan range.* 
There is a class of these variable returning winds, which appear 
to recoil in a comparatively short circuit from the gulf of Mexico 
by way of the North American coast, and from whence, in the au- 
tumnal and winter seasons, they often fall in upon the trades, from a 
northerly direction, at different points between the eastern limit of 
the of Mexico and the meridian of the Bermudas, thus coin- 
ciding in effect with another obstacle to the regular progress of the 
northern portion of the trades which we shall now mention. 
At these seasons the northern margin or parallels of the trade 
winds in sweeping towards the gulf, must necessarily come in collis- 
* It appears from a record of the prevailing winds at Little Rock, on the river Ar- 
kansaw, that during a period of five months ending with October last, the winds from 
south-east to south-west were in the proportion of nearly four-fifths of all those that 
blew from all points of the compass; and that in the same period there was only two 
days in which the wind prevailed from any point between west and north-east, 
This is but an item in the great mass of evidence by which this great circuit or re- 
volution in the atmosphere is established 
