On the. pi'evailing Storms of the Atlantic Coast. 33 



the returning winds of tlie North American States and the northern 

 Atlantic, or falling back again upon the trades by a circuitous route. 



It appears not improbable that these hurricane formations, if this 

 term may be applied to our idea of storms, may sometimes originate 

 at various positions in the great curve betw^een the windward islands 

 of the West Indies, and the capes of North Carolina, and that the 

 more southern and windward formations often diverge to the north- 

 ward upon a track which, in the lower latitudes, lies eastward of the 

 Floridian current, and producing those severe tempests on the At- 

 lantic, of which we hear only by the occasional reports of our mar- 

 iners ; while those storms of a more leeward origin, or which pursue 

 a more westerly direction, press upon our coast as they advance 

 northward, and thus become more appreciable in their effects, or 

 perhaps visit us with their violence. 



The violent hurricanes of the West Indies* having been included 

 in the range of these remarks, it will here be observed, that it is not 

 deemed to be possible, considering the nature of the atmosphere 

 and its constant tendency to an equal distribution, that the wind 

 should blow with very great violence at hardly any place on the 

 globe, unless by means of a circuitous, or revolving motion, in that 

 portion of the atmosphere by which the effect is produced. The 

 position of the axis of revolution may sometimes, however, be hori- 

 zontal, or may be inclined in any degree from the plane of the hori- 

 zon, as in the cases which have been alluded to, and as is probably 



* It has been supposed by some, that the hurricanes of the West Indies, are but 

 thunderstoi-nis of extraordinary violence, but an acquaintance with the usual phe- 

 nomena of these hurricanes will lead to a different conclusion. The fact is well es- 

 tablished that thunderstorms arise in the west and move in an earterly direction. 

 Hurricanes, on the contrary, first appear in the eastern or southern quarter of the 

 horizon, and advance in a westerly or north-western direction. Violent thunder 

 and lightning is by no means a necessary and uniform attendant on hurricanes, and 

 the gyration of these storms being, as has been shown, chiefly horizontal, is not cal- 

 culated to produce that sudden and violent admixture of the higher and lower strata 

 which, in the vertical gyration of a thunderstorm, produces such striking electrical 

 effects. In the hurricane, the gradual and uniform depression and contact of the 

 upper region with the lower produce, ordinarily, only those broad flashes of light- 

 ning which indicate electrical action upon an extensive surface, with but little ener- 

 gy of action. The passage of a hurricane over a hilly country, or mountainous 

 island, will however, by a disturbance of the general equalibrium, doubtless produce 

 violent thunder and lightning. 



It may be added that in the season of hurricanes when the inhabitants of the Cari- 

 bean Islands can discern thunder clouds in the horizon, all immediate apprehensions 

 of a hurricane are at once removed. 



Vol. XX.— No. 1. 5 



