IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 95 



more and more black and threatening as they ad- 

 vanced, and* actually seemed to be driven by more 

 urgent winds than certain other clouds. They were, 

 no doubt, more in the line of the storm influence. 



All our general storms are cyclonic in their char- 

 acter, that is, rotary and progressive. Their type 

 may be seen in every little whirlpool that goes down 

 the swollen current of the river, and in our hemi- 

 sphere they revolve in the same direction, namely, 

 from right to left, or in opposition to the hands of a 

 watch. When the water finds an outlet through the 

 bottom of a dam, a suction or whirling vortex is de- 

 veloped that generally goes round in the same direc- 

 tion. A morning-glory or a hop-vine or a pole-bean 

 winds around its support in the same course, and can- 

 not be made to wind in any other. I am aware there 

 are some perverse climbers among the plants that 

 persist in going around the pole in the other direc- 

 tion. In the southern hemisphere, the cyclone re- 

 volves in the other direction, or from left to right. 

 How do they revolve at the equator, then ? They do 

 not revolve at all. This is the point of zero, and cy- 

 clones are nev^er formed nearer than the third par- 

 allel of latitude. Whether hop-vines also refuse to 

 wind about the pole there, I am unable to say. 



All our cyclones originate in the far Southwest 

 and travel northeast. Why did we wait for the 

 Weather Bureau to tell us this fact ? Do not all the 

 filmy, hazy, cirrus and cirro-stratus clouds first ap- 

 pear from the general direction of the sunset ? Who 



