38 



there are high northerly winds excessively cold, and this 

 seems to be the normal condition of things. On the 

 mountain this gentle north wind will change suddenly, 

 with a rising barometer, to south or southwest, which we 

 can understand readily to be the downward movement of 

 the southwest counter-trade descending to our level but 

 not passing below it. A perfect calm is of the rarest 

 occurrence in winter, for more than an hour or two. At 

 Hanover for three months there were reported ninety-nine 

 calms. Easterly winds are exceptional ; out of two hun- 

 dred and seventy observations, ten only were easterly. 

 At Lunenburg seventy-three in the same time and Hanover 

 forty-one. At Gorham, out of one hundred and forty- 

 seven there were forty-one. .This average holds nearly 

 as good for the summer months. Three or four hundred 

 feet greater elevation would place the summit above the 

 course of the lowest surface winds. Neither do the 

 northwest winds run much over a thousand feet higher. 

 The altitude of 8,000 feet would undoubtedly give con- 

 stant westerly winds. 



From the direction and thickness of the cloud stratum, 

 the height of the atmospheric current may be at all times 

 determined. On the 23d of June at 7 A.M., the cloud en- 

 veloping the summit was unusually dense ; the wind near 

 the depot, southeast, in puffs, and calms, and nine miles 

 per hour. On the roof of the hotel it was southwest and 

 fifteen miles at least. An hour later the rain was pouring 

 in torrents, and at the depot the wind had changed to 

 southwest, thirteen miles an hour. These records show 

 that gentle westerly winds may prevail on the summit, 

 while below, at stations near and remote, the wind is 

 easterly and tempestuous. They show, too, that the 

 heavy gales of the winter were first felt on the mountain. 

 The northwest wind sweeping southward, pushes up, 



