100 REPORT ON THE STATE CABINET. 



5. In the fifth place, I would notice the waviness of the line, if I may 

 be allowed to make a word for the occasion. 



It will be borne in mind that the average on which this diagi'am is 

 constructed is for only about twelve or fifteen years. If I had statistics 

 whereby to extend it over a longer space, a hundred years, for example, 

 no doubt much of this waviness would be corrected. Our weather comes 

 in alternations of heat and cold ; more especially in the winter half of 

 the year the crest of the cold wave coming on one day one year, and on 

 another in the next, and so on. Hence, when it shall have fallen for 

 several times each day, these waves, when taken together, will average 

 one another. 



And yet I am not quite sure that they would. The solstice and equinox 

 are fixed points. At the summer solstice, for example, the sun has 

 reached its northern limit, and from that time it begins to decline south- 

 ward, until, on the 21st of September, it passes into the southern hemis- 

 phere. This is an important fact. " The belt of calms ," as it is called, 

 swings back and forth with the sun. This is the limit and separation 

 wall between the northern and the southern trade winds, and polar 

 currents in general. It determines the northern boundary of the trade 

 winds, they being felt further north in summer than in winter. It deter- 

 mines, also, the latitude at which the return current passes through the 

 polar current so as to become the surface current ; this latitude being some 

 40° further north in summer than in winter. When now this " balance 

 of the winds" swings over into oiu- hemisphere, it sets back the currents 

 of that hemisphere, and as it is constantly advancing up to the time of 

 the solstice, it is like a large vessel setting rapidly into a narrow channel, 

 driving back the waters until they accumulate against the barriers, and 

 then they return in a high wave and with unusual force, and then being 

 reflected back by the advancing ship, they return again to the bari-ier, 

 and so on, oscillating back and forth. When the sun begins to recede 

 from the solstice towards the other hemisphere, the return wave moves 

 with an unusual impulse and for a longer time than usual. 



Now, there can be no doubt that something of this occurs with the 

 winds ; and to this I attribute not only the waviness of our weather, 

 but also the fact that about the time of the equinoxes we have what are 

 familiarly called the " equinoctial storms." 



The reality of these storms is made manifest by the following statis- 

 tics showing the comparative average of the water-fall in the several 

 months : 



