440 THE MOUNTAIN. 



surface, and have all the characteristics of the principal ac- 

 tors of the storm performance. 



It is easily perceived that the Huttonian, or caloric school, 

 can, in these phenomena, get a visible and almost tangible 

 confirmation of their views. These rushing streams of air, 

 carrying fogs or scuds, or low clouds, in volumes toward the 

 centre of the annulus, or the mid-axis of the storm that is 

 coming from the southwest, present all the appearance of 

 regular water-carriers to the advancing chimney or vortex 

 of suction or uprushing. 



It would seem, from the statements of observers, that 

 approaching the warmer Atlantic Ocean coast this scud- 

 mass is greater, and loses much of its water, as sug- 

 gested by Butler and Blodget, before it arrives at the Alle- 

 ghanies; the lofty cirrus and stratus clouds still floating 

 onward, as can easily be observed in the line of the regular 

 counter-trade, and dropping or pouring out their water, as 

 may be, through these terrestrial fogs and vapors 



There is nothing especially peculiar in the phenomena of 

 the transit of the great storms over the Alleghany range. 

 The largest storms, or those having axes of several hundred 

 of miles in extent, with corresponding annuli, are perhaps 

 more violent, and exhibit the whirling, twisting, and com- 

 bating of the irregular under-currents in a more exagger- 

 ated manner than the eastern or western planes ever witness. 

 The winds from the eastern segment, on the approach of the 

 vast vortices of the continental storms, are extremely violent, 

 and their arrival and persistent blowing is the sure precursor 

 of a great meteor striding over the continent from the west- 

 ern segment. In the winter, these eastern winds, sometimes 

 heavily charged with moisture, clothe the forests on the 

 highest knobs or summits of the mountain with a mantle of 

 ice or hoar-frost, while a few hundred feet below, on the east 

 and west sides, there is no such appearance. The mountain 

 reveals its highest expression of grandeur and sublimity when 

 seized and in full possession of one of these magnificent storms. 

 The tornados march across the mountains, as elsewhere, 



