714 ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS FIIENOMENA. 



by some mighty earthquake. The hot dusty earth forms a cloudy veil, 

 which shrouds the heavens from view, and increase the stifling oppression 

 of the atmosphere, while the east wind (the trades) when it blows over the 

 long heated soil, instead of cooling adds to the burning glow." And all this 

 time to the south of this, this hot wind is blowing into an area far cooler, 

 nnd where refreshing rains are present. 



We have the same evidence from Lieut. Ilerndon, in his exploration of 

 the Amazon, we find the same facts in the wind charts of Lieut. Maury, and 

 Livingstone bears testimony to tlie same circumstance south of the equator in 

 southern Africa. 



Now, as to collateral or minor testimony — in the land and sea breezes, 

 about Avhich the same popular opinion prevails — that as the land cools at 

 night there is a breeze seaward, because it retains a more equable tempera- 

 ture — but as the sun rises and beats the land the cool breezes come in from 

 the sea. In some places, as on our own Atlantic coast, the winds do blow 

 so, but on other shores they do not — and this difference shows that it is not 

 this assumed law that governs — for a law does not hold good in one or two 

 instances and fail in a half dozen. This is reversing the test that the ex- 

 ception proves the rule, by making it a rule entirely of exceptions. On the 

 coast of north Africa it is not so. In southern Arabia it is not so. It is not 

 so in eastern Africa along the Mozambique coast, from 10° to 20° south lat- 

 itude, where is some of the hottest land on the globe. The cool breezes of 

 the Indian Ocean do not there blow toward the land, but on the contrary 

 from the furnace hot land into the cool ocean. And it is not so in that part 

 of Hindostan which includes the region between the valley of the Oxus in 

 Persia and the x\ral Lake, although the land is heated from 103° to 150° and 

 the atmosphere to 100° ; on the contrarj'' the wind blows steadily toward 

 the cool sea — and blows from the north at that. And from Madeira by the 

 Canary Islands, along the coast to Cape Blanco and the Cape de Verd 

 Islands, either calms or dry v/inds from the desert are generally met with 

 — the harmattan, or land wind of the desert, which is noted for taking the 

 fine dust far out to sea. 



All these are facts — of record b}^ the thermometer, and by writers of 

 recognized authority in science. These data alone would swell this paper 

 beyond its limits, and they can only be summarized. But here they are lor 

 all the continents. 



It is not the present purpose to notice the theory for these phenomena 

 — that belongs to another view of the subject — but they are used to show 

 that the commonly accepted theorj^ of the causes which create the w'inds 

 and the movements of the atmosphere — the heat derived from the sun by a 

 great uprising vortex at the equator, which causes the cool air to rush in 

 from the poles to restore the equilibrium — does not explain them — because 

 the facts are opposed to it. 



We must then revise our ideas of the atmosphere itself. It cannot be 

 the dead fluid, Avithont property or force within itself, that wo have been 



