200 OF WINDS. CHAP. (i. 



CHAPTER VI. 



SOME PARTICULARS CONCERNING WINDS.' 



WIND has been explained in the following 

 manner. Heated air has a tendency to rise, 

 and cold air rushes in to supply its place. 

 Thus the heated air of the equatorial regions 

 rises, and gives place to a current from the 

 polar regions, which is a process that serves to 

 equalize the temperature of the world. But 

 the polar countries lying nearer to the axis of" 

 the sphere, the air from those regions has not 

 received so much motion as that about the 

 equator, or greatest distance from the axis; 

 wherefore it arrives at the equator, where the 

 motion of the Earth is greater. If it had no 

 motion before, an East Wind would be the 

 consequence, and the force of that Wind would 

 be as the difference between the motion of the 

 Earth where the air came from, and that where 

 it arrived : but then it has a motion to the 

 South ; for it is rushing into a vacuum, left by 

 the air which rises : so that the Wind will not 



* Tables of the comparative number of days in which eacli 

 Wind blows on an average, may be found in 31. Howard's 

 Climate of London, vol. ii. p. 155. 



