258 THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 



effect of these and other circumstances, the winds of the 

 Mediterranean, though to a certain extent regular and 

 periodical, yet abound in local characters and local names ; 

 and we might readily enumerate more than a dozen, per- 

 taining to different coasts or gulfs,, as the Birazones of 

 the SE. coast of Spain ; the Vent de Bize, or Mistral of the 

 southern French coast; the Raffiche of Corsica and other 

 mountainous islands ; the Gregale of Sardinia and Malta ; 

 the Siffanto and Bora of the Adriatic; the Tramontanes 

 generally over the Levant ; and the Levanters and Sirocco 

 of the whole Mediterranean. Of these several winds the 

 Sirocco, or south-easterly wind, is by far the most remark- 

 able; not merely from its frequency and wide prevalence, 

 but yet more from its physical properties, and peculiar 

 effects on the animal frame. These effects, mainly mani- 

 fested on the nervous and muscular power, are now become 

 too familiar to the traveller to need being dwelt upon in 

 detail. Every one who has felt this wind as it occurs at 

 Malta or Palermo, will well remember that prostration both 

 of body and mind, which is its instant and continued effect 

 an effect certainly not owing to temperature alone, since 

 winds of greater heat may blow from other quarters without 

 producing the like results. Various circumstances make it 

 probable that atmospheric electricity is concerned in these 

 phenomena; but we need minute and prolonged observa- 

 tions, like those of Peltier and Quetelet, to satisfy the 

 demand for facts, before this or any other hypothesis can 

 stand good. Such research might be readily carried on at 

 Malta; conjoined with observations as to the proportion of 

 Ozone, and other properties of this strange and malignant 

 wind, the local relation of which to the African and Arabian 

 deserts, and to the Samiel wind of Egypt, will at once occur 

 in any speculation as to its causes. 



The frequent suddenness and violence of Mediterranean 



