176 WINDS* 



pour almost before it reaches the surface ; and the 

 places seem absolutely dry. But when the eva- 

 poration is suspended by the cloud which cools the 

 ascending air and sends it down again, so that it 

 continues taking moisture alternately from the 

 earth and cloud, those tricklings appear; and 

 fresh moisture is apparent on the earth before any 

 begins to fall in visible rain from the sky. 



When the cause which heats the air is power- 

 ful, and its action long continued, the whole 

 mass of the atmosphere may be put into motion ; 

 and the air which is moved, may spring so fast 

 upon that which has in itself no cause of motion, 

 as to produce very grand, but, at the same time, 

 very serious effects. In the alternate halves of 

 the year there are alternating heats of the sun in the 

 north and south hemispheres of the earth; and 

 these of course cause, in -the middle latitudes, a 

 shifting of all the currents and motions of the air, 

 as the surface wind always blows from the cold 

 place toward the warm. 



The sun is no doubt the general cause of all 

 those motions of the air that are on the grand 

 scale ; and it is worthy of notice, though of course 

 there is no instructive analysis in it, that the young 

 sunbeams are as sportive as the young animals. 

 In March and April, and the early part of May, 

 the atmosphere is absolutely wild. It is cold bleak 

 wind ; then castled clouds, and gusts flitting 

 about ; then a hail shower ; after that, hot sunny 

 gleams; then fog; next cold wind again; after 

 that, thunder and more hail showers, often in lumps 

 in the warmer places ; and after these again wea- 

 ther almost as hot as that of summer. One would 

 almost think that every spring, the prayer of the 



