288 A NEW VIEW OF THE WEATHER QUESTION. 



and so thick, as the sailors say, that no lights were seen from the shore. They 

 were running by dead-reckoning, that is, by their knowledge of the speed of the 

 boat, the force of the currents and general experience of navigation in these 

 waters. As the steamer was, about 1 1 p. m. , near the gate to the ocean, it was 

 decided to turn the head around towards the west, and "stand-by" till morning. 

 From want of exact knowledge of their situation, from not having proper data, 

 the boat was accidentally run ashore on a projecting sand point. Had the wind 

 remained to the Southeast, at the slow rate of speed at which the boat was going, 

 this would not have been a serious matter, but soon after midnight, or there- 

 about, the wind suddenly came out to the Northwest. The captain now found 

 himself, instead of under a lea, on a lea-shore and at the mercy of a fierce wind. 

 What had caused the change ? When we follow up the path of low, it is all as 

 plain of explanation as the blowing of the wind itself. On the return of another 

 day, the advancing heat of the sun out on the ocean had caused (or pulled) the 

 center of low to the eastward, whereby the wind, that had been blowing toward 

 this center from the northward and westward, was permitted to go into other fields, 

 as it were, in order still to seek the point of low that it is all the while striving for. 

 These changes are more or less sudden, depending on the power and concentra- 

 tion of low and the relation that it bears to a given locality. 



LXXXV. In this connection there are a few other general points of illus- 

 tration that it may be well to refer to. It is known that there is no regularity to 

 the speed and continuance of low, it evidently is continually on the move, yet 

 practically for some localities in the United States it is stationary for some two, 

 three, and sometimes four days, and, on rare occasions, perhaps more ; but the 

 most severe spell of such a blow that I bear in mind is that which commenced 

 on the first of March, 1872, and continued with unsurpassed fierceness till the 

 fifth. During this time the conditions were evidently favorable for a concentra- 

 ted and long low off the coast along down and by Hatteras, or, in what sailors 

 call the " Devil's Corner." This was probably one of the most fierce and con- 

 tinuous winds that we have had along the Atlantic coast. 



LXXXVI. Sometimes we see all, or nearly all, the evidences of a storm ■ 

 the clouds form, the wind is in the right direction, and it "feels like rain," but 

 no rain comes perhaps for a month, two months, or even more. Everything is 

 parched for want of rain, and dust is very abundant. This has given rise to the 

 saying "that all signs fail in dry times." It would seem that there could be no 

 fault to find with the ' ' signs ;" so far as they are concerned they are all right — 

 they are evidence of conditions actually existing, but the trouble is that these 

 conditions are a long way off. Low circles around, but sometimes, more particu- 

 larly in the summer, it goes very far in some one direction, the circles that it 

 describes are very large while its own circle or center is apt to be contracted, so 

 that it passes by some localities merely touching them with its outer edge, which 

 frequently gives the "sign" as it passes, but nothing more; the rain that is 

 developed, even in part, in the dry localities, is taken off to other places. 



LXXXVII. Also on such occasions we see the evening flashes of light, 



