On the prevailing Storms of the Atlantic Coast. 31 



variable winds, tending back to the north-east in the temperate lati- 

 tudes. This prevalence of these compensating v^^inds is so uniform 

 as to occasion an average difference of seventeen days in favor of 

 the eastern passage of packet ships engaged in the European trade. 

 Even in England they have two hundred and twenty five days of 

 westerly wind to one hundred and forty days of an easterly direction, 

 and if our view of the easterly storms be correct, this tendency is 

 more general and uniform than has hitherto been supposed, most of 

 the other winds being, in that case, but irregular modifications of the 

 westerly or returning trade wind. The prevailing effect upon the 

 North American coast, during most parts of the year is that of a 

 south-westerly wind, but becoming more westerly as we advance 

 northward. 



This general current of atmosphere is often qualified in its direc- 

 tion, and acted upon obliquely by the more western and north-western 

 land winds. These several winds or modifications of the same gen- 

 eral current, often prevail in stratified currents overlaying each other, 

 the most western of these currents forming generally the upper stra- 

 tum. It is probable, as already suggested, that these winds are but 

 the recoiling, or returning masses of the trades which penetrate to 

 the bottom of the gulf of Mexico, the superior strata of which may 

 be sent back from the most western points of the horizon from the 

 highest barrier which is found in the great Mexican elevations, or 

 even the Chippewayan range.* 



There is a class of these variable returning winds, which appear 

 to recoil in a comparatively short circuit from the gulf of Mexico 

 by way of the North American coast, and from whence, in the au- 

 tumnal and winter seasons, they often fall in upon the trades, from a 

 northerly direction, at different points between the eastern limit of 

 the gulf of Mexico and the meridian of the Bermudas, thus coin- 

 ciding in effect with another obstacle to the regular progress of the 

 northern portion of the trades which we shall now mention. 



At these seasons the northern margin or parallels of the trade 

 winds in sweeping towards the gulf, must necessarily come m coUis- 



* It appears from a record of the prevailing winds at Little Rock, on the river Ar- 

 kansaw, that during a peiiod of five months ending with October last, the winds from 

 south-east to south-west were in the proportion of nearly four-lifths of all those that 

 blew from all points of the compass ; and that in the same period there was only two 

 days in which the wind prevailed from any point between west and north-east. 

 This is but an item in the great mass of evidence by which this great circuit or re- 

 volution in the atmosphere is established. 



