292 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



prevailing winds, as already remarked, are the southwest passage 

 winds (Plate VIII.), or, as they are more generally called by mar- 

 iners, the "westerly" winds; these, in the Atlantic, prevail over 

 the " easterly" winds in the ratio of about two to one. 



845. Now if we suppose, and such is probably the case, these 

 " westerly" winds to convey in two days a greater volume of at- 

 mosphere toward the arctic circle than those " easterly" winds can 

 bring back in one, we establish the necessity for an upper current 

 by which this difference may be returned to the tropical calms of 

 our hemisphere. Therefore there must be some place in the polar 

 regions (§ 154) at which these southwest winds cease to go north, 

 and from which they commence their return to the south, and this 

 locality must be in a region peculiarly liable to calms. It is an- 

 other atmospherical node in which the motion of the air is upward, 

 with a decrease of barometric pressure. It is marked P, Plate I. 



846. To appreciate the force and volume of these polar-bound 

 winds in the southern hemisphere, it is necessary that one should 

 " run them down" in that waste of waters beyond the parallel of 

 40° S., where " the winds howl and the seas roar." The billows 

 there lift themselves up in long ridges with deep hollows between 

 them. They run high and fast, tossing their white caps aloft in 

 the air, looking like the green hills of a rolling prairie capped with 

 snow, and chasing each other in sport. Still their march is state- 

 ly and their roll majestic. The scenery among them is grand, 

 and the Australian-bound trader, after doubling the Cape of Good 

 Hope, finds herself followed for weeks at a time by these magnif- 

 icent rolling swells, driven and lashed by the " brave west winds" 

 furiously. A sailor's bride, performing this voyage with her gallant 

 husband, thus alludes in her " abstract log" to these rolling seas : 



847. "We had some magnificent gales off the Cape, when the 

 coloring of the waves, the transition from gray to clear brilliant 

 green, with the milky-white foam, struck me as most exquisite. 

 And then in rough weather the moral picture is so fine, the calm- 

 ness and activity required is such an exhibition of the power of 

 mind over the elements, that I admired the sailors fully as much 

 as the sea, and, of course^ the sailor in command most of all ; in- 

 deed, a sea voyage more than fulfills my expectations." 



