366 PHYSICAL GEOGKAPHY OP THE SEA, AND ITS METEOEOLOGY. 



710. '' Such are the shiftings. But what have they to do with 

 Passing of the calm the general system of the circulation of the atmo- 

 ^^^^^- sphere ? Whenever we read attentively the beau- 

 tiful meditations of the founder of the Meteorology of the Sea, 

 and follow him in the development of his hypothesis, which lays 

 open to view the wheels whereby the atmosphere performs its 

 varied and comprehensive task with order and regiilarity, then it 

 will not be necessary to furnish proof that these turnings are 

 nothing else than the passing of a belt of calms which separates 

 the monsoons from each other, and which, as we know, goes 

 annually with the sun from the south to the north, and back 

 over the torrid zone to and fro. 



711. "So also the calms, which precede the land and sea 

 ■^vhere they are. there winds, are tumod back. If, at the coming of 

 monsoon! 'i?going on. the laud-wind in the hills, we go with it to the 

 coast— to the sea, we shall perceive that it shoves away the 

 calms which preceded it from the hills to the coast, and so far 

 upon the sea as the land-wind extends. Here, upon the limits 

 of the permanent monsoon, the place for the calms remains for 

 the night, to be turned back to the land and to the hills the fol- 

 lowing day by the sea-wind. In every place where these calms 

 go, the land and sea-winds turn back. If various observers, 

 jDlaced between the hills and the sea, and between the coast and 

 the farthest limit of the land-wind, noted the moment when they 

 perceived the calms, and that when they perceived the land-wind, 

 then by this means they would learn how broad the belt of calms 

 has been, and with what rapidity they are pushed over the sea 

 and over the land. And even though the results one day should 

 be found not to agree very well with those of another, they would 

 at least obtain an average thereof which would be of value. So, 

 on a larger scale, the belt of calms which separates the monsoons 

 from each other presses in the spring from the south to the 

 north, and in the fall from the north to the south, and changes 

 the monsoons in every place where it presses."* 



* Bijdrage Natuurkiindige Beschrijving der zeen, vertaald door M. H, Jansen, 

 Luitenant ter zee. 



