PART iv. OCCASIONAL PHENOMENA. 39 



During the night, this cloud died away, in loco. The 

 next morning, June 27, was fine beyond precedent, with 

 pure blue sky and bright sunshine from sunrise to sunset. 

 The following day, June 2'8, was not only cloudy, but the 

 trade-wind was, visibly to us at our station 270 feet high, 

 re-established in force on the seas east and south of 

 Madeira; and the day after that, or June 29, besides 

 being also densely clouded, was marked by a heavy, 

 almost tropical, downpour of rain all day long. 



Again and again during that week, we were assured 

 on all sides, by Portuguese as well as English, and both 

 upper and lower classes, that they had never seen such a 

 cloud as that of Sunday, June 26th, before. Yet on July 

 26th, after we had packed up our instruments and were 

 waiting for the homeward-bound steamer, another cloud 

 of the same kind did form, though not to so pronounced 

 a degree ; and we have since then heard of a resident 

 declaring that such clouds are not seldom seen in 

 Madeira, and are a sign of Leste wind prevailing at upper 

 stations. On the grand occasion of June 26th and the 

 two days following there may have been a Leste blowing 

 aloft, because the re-establishment, to our eyes, of the 

 trade- wind over the seas to the eastward on the 28th was 

 so signally followed by the downpour of rain through the 

 whole of the 29th. But the Leste itself is a three days' 

 affair, while the peculiar cloud lasted only half a day ; 

 and, wherever extraordinary quantities of visible vapour 

 are formed, concentrated, and arrayed in peculiar shapes, 



