152 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



haze, which presently thickens into ill-defined grey cloud. 

 The wind drops, and capriciously springs up again from the 

 south-west ; pale woolly clouds hang under the darker grey, 

 and the first drops of rain begin to fall. The sky darkens, 

 and tearing gusts sweep up dust, paper, and leaves ; the rain 

 comes on more heavily, and the wind blows harder and 

 harder from the south-west. The elms groan with their long 

 south-westerly music, and the rivulets tear channels through 

 the carpets of leaves in the lanes. The length and fierceness 

 of the storm depend on the size and intensity of the depres- 

 sion, and on our nearness to its centre ; but sooner or later 

 the rain falls more heavily than ever, the wind shifts towards 

 the west or north-west, the air grows colder, and with a few 

 more showers the rack of cloud breaks up into open masses, 

 and the sun or the stars shine through. The cyclone has 

 passed, leaving the beech boughs half stripped but shining, 

 the rivulets running thinly down their last night's courses, 

 and the summer grass submerged in the ponds. 



The general movement of the wind currents in a cyclonic 

 depression in the northern hemisphere is in the opposite 

 direction to that of the hands of a watch, or of the sun. 

 But all cyclones, at any rate in temperate latitudes, do not 

 merely revolve round and round their centre of depression ; 

 they are gradually sucking in air from outside as they spin, 

 until the depression gradually fills up and disappears from 

 the map. Currents of air curve inwards from all quarters 

 and merge in the general cyclonic circulation. A very 

 simple rule enables us to tell from the direction of the wind 

 on which side of us the centre of the storm is situated. 

 If we stand with our face to the wind in the northern 

 hemisphere, the centre of depression is on our right hand. 

 In the southern hemisphere it will be on the left. In 

 England most cyclones pass to the northward of us, on a 



