PART iv. OCCASIONAL PHENOMENA. 35 



ranean, strange to say, is loaded with moisture. Not- 

 withstanding, too, that it can reach Madeira only after 

 passing over about 300 miles of sea, yet it encounters 

 you like puffs from the mouth of an oven or furnace, 

 lasts almost invariably three days; when furniture warps 

 and cracks, books gape as they do when exposed to a 

 fire, and some have asserted that it has raised the ther- 

 mometer to 95 in the shade." 



Then why is there nothing of that kind in my Wife's 

 Meteorological Journal for June and July 1881 ? 



Either that no Leste occurred during that period, or 

 that, as we were extensively informed, the Leste is pro- 

 perly felt only at considerable heights on the hill stations 

 in Madeira. 



This latter explanation appears to me singularly pro- 

 bable, from much practice in flame spectroscopy with a 

 horizontal blowpipe ; for the hot, burning air thereof 

 comes rushing out of its tube directed right at the centre 

 of the anterior object-glass of the spectroscope on its 

 own level ; but so far from cracking or fusing the said 

 objective, the current never reaches it ; for, rising as it 

 proceeds on its path, the hot air is to be felt only 

 by holding the hand several inches above what it was 

 originally pointed at. 



The African desert wind is this blowpipe current ; at 

 first all heat and fury, rushing in a horizontal position out 

 to the sea. But it rises gradually in its course to the 

 west, picking up moisture rapidly as it goes by reason of 



