THE WEATHER. 217 



' Take a large dish, fill it with cold water, and into 

 the middle of this put a little plate filled with warm water, 

 the first will represent the ocean, the latter an island 

 rarefying the air above it. 



' Blow out a wax-candle, and if the place be still, on 

 applying it successively to every side of the dish, the 

 smoke, being visible and very light, will be seen to move 

 towards the plate, and, rising over it, point out the course 

 of the air from sea to land. Again, if the ambient water 

 be warmed and the plate filled with cold water, when 

 the smoking wick of the candle is held over the centre 

 of the plate, the contrary will happen, and show the 

 course of the wind from land to sea.' 



(d) Variable Winds. 



In the Temperate and Frozen Zones on each side of 

 the equator, the winds are variable. Great efforts have 

 been made to study their changes so as to predict the 

 weather ; but these efforts have been almost entirely 

 fruitless. There seems to be some faint connexion 

 between the changes of the moon and those of the wind. 

 Whether this arises from any influence of the moon itself, 

 or of the tides of the ocean, occasioned by the motions 

 of the moon, or of the great Aerial Tides, which, though 

 not obvious to us, are equal, real, and certain, is a point 

 on which the weatherwise are not agreed. We shall 

 make no farther remarks on this point but only present 

 our readers here with one or two descriptions of violent 

 winds which have occurred "in the latitudes in which we 

 live. The following account of a hurricane in Hun^ 

 tingfordshire, Sept. 8, 1741, is unquestionably true. 



'The storm seemed not to be thirty yards high from 

 the ground, bringing along with it a mist, rolling along 

 with such incredible swiftness, that it ran about a mile 

 and a half in half a minute. It began exactly at twelve 

 o'clock, arid lasted about thirteen minutes, eight minutes 

 in full violence : it presently uncovered the house, and 

 some of the tiles falling down to windward, were blown 

 in at the sashes and against the wainscot on the other 

 side of the room. The broken glass was blown all over 

 the room ; the chimneys all escaped, but the statues QA 



