THE WINDS OF THE OCEAN 51 



of to bring ships home to Europe. After long research 

 I find that the origin of this wonderful wind is as 

 mysterious as most of the great natural phenomena, if 

 not more so. It cuts right across, if we may so put it, 

 the southern flow of air which determines the Trades, 

 yet everywhere all round the world, where it has ample 

 room and verge enough outside the tropics, the west 

 wind blows preponderantly, and the greater the ocean 

 space the steadier the brave west wind prevails. Yet 

 here, let me say, that within my own small experience 

 I have always found it in the Southern hemisphere 

 with a tendency to veer, that is against the movements 

 of the hands of a clock, until it came to the south-east, 

 when it would falter, suddenly shift to north-east, and 

 then begin to work round slowly to west again in 

 the same direction. 



This, however, is straying far from the North 

 Atlantic and its extra-tropical winds. The nearest 

 approach to an explanation of why these winds should 

 blow so persistently from west or west-south-west is 

 the converse of the easterly touchjn the Trades. The 

 hot tropical air descending as it cools to the depleted 

 temperate zone, whence the Trades were drawn, is 

 moving faster from west to east than the earth's sur- 

 face when it descends. As in a circulating boiler, 

 equilibrium is established, a steady current of air in 

 one direction is balanced by an opposite wind close to 

 it, relatively speaking. If this be the case, it is 

 certainly a cause for wonder that the counter trade is 

 so much less steady in direction and certain in its flow 

 than the Trade itself. But perhaps what it lacks in 

 steadiness of course it makes up for in the violence 

 with which it often blows when on its proper course, 



