CENTRAL REGION 19 



slowly the cloud-floor slopes downward until 

 at last the cloud-fleets come to ground, and 

 the breath of the sou '-wester becomes visible 

 as the Northern Forest. Beyond that forest 

 the wind trails its cold vapours over the sub- 

 Arctic tundras of North-Eastern Canada, 

 lashing bleak rains on Baffin's Bay, to spend 

 the last of its moisture in the form of snow 

 upon the Greenland Ice-cap. 



Central Region. From the eastern part 

 of the Equatorial Pacific, about the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Gallipagoes, a second echelon 

 of the sou '-wester brings its immense load of 

 flying clouds high in the air across the United 

 States to slant down out of the skies and brush 

 the Atlantic in the Forties. Strong gales trail 

 their clouds along the Gulf Stream, taking a 

 deal of warmth out of that current. Exposed 

 trees in North-western Europe are slightly 

 bent by the stress of Atlantic gales, while all 

 the traiHng clouds discharge their cargoes of 

 warm rain across the Baltic Region. The 

 British Isles, for example, get an annual ration 

 amounting to thirty cubic miles of water fresh 

 from the Equatorial Pacific. 



These two large echelons of the sou '-wester 

 carried the vapour which once fell as snow to 

 form the Icefields of the Great Ice Age. 



