PART iv. OCCASIONAL PHENOMENA. 33 



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UNIVERSITY 



PART IV. 



OCCASIONAL PHENOMENA. 



ALTHOUGH the Bermudian Islands are situated on the 

 very same parallel of latitude as Madeira, I have not 

 referred to them in the preceding comparisons. This is 

 because their longitude, so far away to the western side 

 of the Atlantic, brings them within a totally different 

 meteorologic category. And they are also as diverse 

 geographically, being little but low, annular, coral-reef 

 islets. Their winds, too, are mainly from the south, 

 instead of the north-east ; and their ocean current being 

 that of the Gulf Stream itself in the most impetuous part 

 of its career, the climate approximates rather to that of 

 the West Indies; whence, moreover, come upon them 

 rather too frequent visitations of destructive hurricanes, 

 tropical rains, and deadly yellow fever. 



These scourges are signally absent from the eastern 

 side of the Atlantic ; but in their place Madeira has a 

 most noteworthy phenomenon of her own, on which most 

 of her medical authors have written more or less. This 

 phenomenon is the occurrence, at rare intervals, of the 



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