of the United States and the West Indies. 121 



It Is the mere rising and falling of the mercury, which chiefly de- 

 serves atlentionj and not its conformity to a particular point in the 

 scale of elevation. ; 



9. These practical inferences apply in terms, chiefly to storms 

 which have passed to the northward of the 30th degree of latitude on 

 the American coast, but with the necessary modification as to the 

 point of the compass, which results from the westerly course pursued 

 by the storm while in the lower latitudes, are for the most part equal- 

 ly applicable to the storms and hurricanes vi^hich occur in the West 

 Indies, and south of the parallel of 30°. As the marked occurrence 

 of tempestuous weather is here less frequent, it may be sufficient to' 

 notice that the point of direction, in cases which are otherwise analo- 

 gous, is in the West Indian seas, about ten or twelve points of the 

 compass more to the left than on the coast of the United States in the 

 latitude of New- York. 



Vicissitudes of winds and weather on this coast which do not con- 

 form to the foregoing specifications, are more frequent in April, May, 

 and June, than in other months. Easterly or so.utherly winds under 

 which the barometer rises, or maintains its elevation, are not of a gy- 

 ratory or stormy character ; but such winds frequently terminate in 

 the falling of the barometer and the usual phenomena of an easterly 

 storm. 



The typhoons and storms of the China sea and eastern coast of 

 Asia, appear to be similar in character to the hurricanes of the West 

 Indies and the storms of this coast, when prevailiflg in the same lati- 

 tudes. There is reason to believe that the great circuits of wind, of 

 which the trade winds form an integral part, are nearly uniform in all 

 the great oceanic basins ; and that the course of these circuits and of 

 the stormy gyrations which they may contain, is, in the southern 

 hemisphere, in a counter-direction to those north of the equator, pro- 

 ducing a corresponding difference in the general phases of storms 

 and winds in the two hemispheres. 

 Vol. XXV.— No. 1, 16 



