158 THE OCEAN RIVER 



his vessel the next day high and dry on Elliott's Island and 

 his anchor suspended in the boughs of a tree/' 



As yet modern meteorologists have not figured out a satis- 

 factory relationship between the prevalence or scarcity of the 

 greatest of all our cyclonic storms and the polar fronts; but 

 certainly there is such a relationship, which is gradually be- 

 coming more thoroughly explored. It is even possible that 

 there may yet be charted indirect but consistent relationships 

 between the fluctuations of the Gulf Stream and the incidence 

 of hurricanes storming above its waters from the Caribbean. 

 But these violent storms of late summer and fall roaring along 

 our Atlantic coasts, and occasionally following the Ocean 

 River clear to the English Channel, are important manifesta- 

 tions of the climate engine of the North Atlantic. Some of 

 them are set up at the very roots of the Equatorial Current 

 of the Cape Verde Islands, and make full circle to the Grand 

 Banks of Newfoundland or even back again across the north- 

 ern seas. They travel, as the Stream does, east-to-west-to-north 

 in a kind of end run around the prevailing midocean or 

 Bermuda high pressure area. If they happen at the same 

 time to be pinched from the west by a strong continental 

 high-pressure area as they were in 1938 and 1944, we get 

 increasing intensity, as they come up the coast. 



The chances are that a line storm about the time of the 

 autumnal equinox along our North Atlantic coasts is the tail 

 end of a Caribbean hurricane. A cyclonic storm is one where 

 winds blow in a circular direction around a relatively windless 

 center in a counterclockwise direction. These storms have a 

 secondary movement along a directional path controlled by 

 the pull of the earth spin and the pressure isobars of the 

 atmosphere. They can cover hundreds of miles in extent, and 

 are flat in proportion to their depth. The average hurricane 

 or intense cyclonic storm is about a mile deep, but the big 

 ones can disturb the air for at least twice that height above 

 the earth. The revolving winds curve more or less inward 



