162 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AXD ITS lilETEOEOLOGY. ' 



most choice climates for tlie olive, tlie Yme, and the poppy ; for 

 the melon, the joeach, and almond. The finest of "wool may be 

 grown there ; and the j)otato, with hemp, tobacco, maize, and all the 

 cereals, may be cultivated there in great perfection. No climate 

 of the temperate zone will be found to sm-pass in salubrity that 

 of this Piedmont trans-Mississippi country. The calm zone of 

 Capricorn is the duplicate of that of Cancer, and the winds flow 

 from it as they do from that, both north and south, but with this 

 difference : that on the polar side of the Capricorn belt they pre- 

 vail from the north-west instead of the south-west, and on the equa- 

 torial side from the south-east instead of the north-east. Now if it 

 be true that the vapom- of the north-east trade--\\dnds is condensed 

 in the extra -tropical regions of the southern hemisj)here, the fol- 

 lowing path, on account of the effect of diurnal rotation of the 

 earth upon the com'se of the winds, would represent the mean cir- 

 cuit of a portion of the atmosphere moving according to the gene- 

 ral system of its circulation over the Pacific Ocean, viz. : coming 

 down from the north as an upper cm-rent, and appearmg on the 

 surface of the earth in about longitude 120"^ west, and near the 

 tropic of Cancer, it would here commence to blow the north-east 

 trade- winds of that region. To make this clear, see Plate YII., on 

 which I have marked the course of such vapom'-bearing v\^ds ; A 

 being a breadth or sivath of vdnds in the north-east trades ; B, the 

 same wuid as the upper and counter-cmTent to the south-east 

 trades ; and C, the same vdiid. after it has descended in the calm 

 belt of Capricorn, and come out on the polar tide thereof, as the 

 rain winds and prevailing north-west winds of the extra-tropical 

 regions of the southern hemisphere. This, as the north-east trades, 

 is the evaporating wind. As the north-east trade-"^TQd, it sweeps 

 over a gTeat waste of waters lying between the tropic of Cancer 

 and the equator. Meeting no land in this long oblique track over 

 the tepid waters of a tropical sea, it would, if such were its route, 

 arrive somewhere about the meridian of 140° or 150° west, at the 

 belt of equatorial calms, which always divides the north-east from 

 the south-east trade winds. Here, depositing a portion of its vapour 

 as it ascends, it would, with the residuum, take, on account of diur- 

 nal rotation, a course in the upper region of the atmosphere to 

 the south-east, as far as the calms of Capricorn. Here it descends 

 and continues on towards the coast of South America, in the same 

 direction, appearing now as the prevailing north-west wind of the 

 extra-tropical regions of the southern hemisphere. Travelling on 



