122 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



227. According to this view, and not taking into account any 

 of the exceptions produced by the land and other circumstances 

 upon the general circulation of the atmosphere over the ocean, the 

 southeast trade-wands, which reach the shores of Brazil near the 

 parallel of Rio, and which blow thence for the most part over the 

 land, should be the winds which, in the general course of circula- 

 tion, would be carried, after crossing the Andes and rising up in 

 the belt of equatorial calms, toward Northern Africa, Spain, and 

 the South of Europe. 



They might carry with them the infusoria of Ehrenberg (§ 158), 

 but, according to this theory, they would be wanting in moisture. 

 Now^, are not those portions of the Old World, for the most part 

 dry countries, receiving but a small amount of precipitation ? 



228. Hence the general rule : those countries to the north of 

 the calms of Cancer, which have large bodies of land situated to 

 the southward and westw^ard of them, in the southeast trade-wind 

 region of the earth, should have a scanty supply of rain, and vice 

 versa. 



229. Let us try this rule : The extra-tropical part of New Hol- 

 land comprises a portion of land thus situated in the southern hem- 

 isphere. Tropical India is to the northward and westward of it ; 

 and tropical India is in the northeast trade-wind region, and should 

 give extra-tropical New Holland a slender supply of rain. But 

 what modifications the monsoons of the Indian Ocean may make 

 to this rule, or what effect they may have upon the rains in New 

 Holland, my investigations in that part of the ocean have not been 

 carried far enough for final decision ; though New Holland is a 

 dry country. Referring back to p. 79 for what has been already 

 said concerning the " Meteorological Agencies" (^ 115) of the 

 atmosphere, it will be observed that cases are there brought for- 

 ward which aiford trials for this rule, every one of which holds 

 good. 



230. Thus, though it be not proved as a mathematical truth 

 that magnetism is the power which guides the storm from right 

 to left and from left to right, which conducts the moist and the 

 dry air each in its appointed paths, and which regulates the "wind 

 in his circuits," yet that it is such a power is rendered very prob- 

 able ; for, under the supposition that there is such a crossing of the 

 air at the five calm places, as Plate, p. 70, represents (^ 106), we 



