SUN-SPOT, STORM, AND FAMINE. 29 



ways, directly or indirectly, various degrees of pressure and 

 temperature are brought about in the atmospheric envelope 

 of the earth, and, speaking generally, all air currents, from the 

 gentlest zephyr to the fiercest tornado, are the movements 

 by which the equilibrium of the air is restored, Like other 

 movements tending to restore equilibrium, the atmospheric 

 motions are oscillatory. Precisely as when a spring has been 

 bent one way, it flies not back only, but beyond the mean 

 position, till it is almost equally bent the other way, so the 

 current of air which rushes in towards a place of unduly 

 diminished pressure does more than restore the mean 

 pressure, so that presently a return current carries off the 

 excess of air thus carried in. We may say, indeed, that the 

 mean pressure at any place scarcely ever exists, and when it 

 exists for a time the resulting calm is of short duration. Just 

 as the usual condition of the sea surface is one of disturbance, 

 greater or less, so the usual condition of the air at every spot 

 on the earth's surface is one of motion not of quiescence. 

 Every movement of the air, thus almost constantly perturbed, 

 is due directly or indirectly to the sun. 



So also every drop of rain or snow, every particle of 

 liquid or of frozen water in mist or in cloud, owes its birth 

 to the sun. The questions addressed of old to Job, " Hath 

 the rain a father ? or who hath begotten the drops of dew ? 

 out of whose womb came the ice ? and the hoary frost of 

 heaven, who hath gendered it?" have been answered by 

 modern science, and to every question the answer is, The 

 Sun. He is parent of the snow and hail, as he is of the 

 moist warm rains of summer, of the ice which crowns the 

 everlasting hills, and of the mist which rises from the valleys 

 beneath his morning rays. 



Since, then, the snow that clothes the earth in winter as 

 with a garment, and the clouds that in due season drop 

 fatness on the earth, are alike gendered by the sun; since 

 every movement in our air, from the health-bringing breeze 

 to the most destructive hurricane, owns him as its parent ; 

 we must at the outset admit, that if there is any body 



