GREAT ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. 115 



in its simplicity and magnitude. We hope also still 

 further to follow up and explain in our survey of the 

 climatic zones the wondrous phenomena which are 

 there produced in the vegetable kingdom, by the 

 united effects of heat and moisture. 



Thus far, however, we have regarded Nature mainly 

 in her calmer aspects; but this section would be in- 

 complete without some notice of those great atmo- 

 spherical disturbances, such as hurricanes and blizzards, 

 or storms attended by the sudden onset of intense 

 cold. Nature, our beneficent mother, ordinarily so soft 

 and gentle in her operations, then becomes terrible in 

 her destructive power and yet this violence is not, 

 as poets have sometimes described it, an access of 

 unreasoning fury; for the ultimate action of all storms 

 may be held to be restorative and beneficial, and may 

 be regarded as the convulsive efforts of Nature to 

 redress still greater evils, and to bring back into its 

 normal condition those disturbances of the atmosphere 

 brought about, occasionally, by a combination of un- 

 toward circumstances. 



When the storm fiend, therefore, is unloosed, and 

 the mighty winds have gone forth to threaten and 

 destroy, we must be content to view it in this light. 

 In the economy of Nature, severe storms may in fact 

 be regarded as a paroxysm of disease, such as that 

 which attacks our corporeal frames acute disease, 

 as we know, being by no means an unmixed evil to 

 the suffering mortal; but rather a supreme effort of 

 Nature to cast off from us those morbid conditions 

 which menace our safety and existence. Very terrible 

 and very destructive, however, these paroxysms of 

 Nature sometimes become; and very fortunate we may 



