284 A NEW VIEW OF THE WEATHER QUESTION. 



within a very few years that we could trace a storm over such a vast area as the 

 United States. Now we see why the wind should come up in a certain manner 

 and pass around to another quarter, and so on till it comes out finally with the 

 wind from another direction, and clears off; and why the wind is ever going 

 from one point of the compass to another, and why a storm is liable to come up 

 with one wind as well as with another. 



LXVIII. It is a common thing to hear that "the wind is blowing up a 

 storm." It may seem contrary to the wisdom of the past to deny that the "wind 

 blows up a storm," yet from the remarks on the condition, low, it must seem 

 obvious that the wind does not blow up a storm, but rather that, if anything, the 

 reverse of this is more true, that the storm raises the wind. A low is developed, 

 the wind rushes in to fill the vacuum. If low is, say in the middle of the United 

 States, to the west of the same, the wind will be from the west ; while to the east 

 of the condition, the wind will be generally from the east: and if it passes to 

 the south of a certain point, the wind at that point would be from the north, and 

 the reverse if to the north. So the manner in which the vane turns will depend 

 upon the relative location of the center of the condition low, toward which the 

 wind will always blow. This can be better traced by reference to the map or 

 plate. 



LXIX. Then an east wind is generally considered a very stormy one with 

 us, yet it is purely accidental, and we sometimes have exceedingly pleasant and 

 clear weather with an easterly wind, for the simple reason that low is traveling to 

 the west of our particular locality, and may pass us by altogether without pro- 

 ducing a storm in our immediate locality. The greater part of the time, how- 

 ever, an east wind is caused by low being in the line of our locality, then the 

 clouds that have been generating for days over the Atlantic ocean are brought to 

 us and we have rain in abundance, and all the effects derived from the condition 

 of low barometer. Yet in this connection it must be remembered that what may 

 be a northeast storm in one locality, will to another locality, on some other side 

 of low be called a storm from another quarter, i. e. , a condition low is circular, 

 and the storm converges toward it from every direction. This center may not 

 be an exact circle or even approximate thereto, for oftentimes its real outline is 

 anything but circular. The term circular is here used only in a general sense. 



LXX. When there is a very positive low, a fierce wind is developed, and 

 as the sun first strikes the east, the storm will travel generally in that direction, 

 and as the wind will be from all directions toward this center, an elastic medium 

 of air is established, as it were, as a cushion for the wind from each quarter to 

 receive and be received upon, whereby the force of tornadoes are checked . 

 otherwise they would do far more damage than they do. 



LXXI. Much has been said about equinoctial storms. People have an 

 idea that when the sun "crosses the line," that there must be some extra com- 

 motion whereby a great storm is generated. In regard to this, I will venture the 

 assertion that there is no such thing as an "equinoctial storm." Any storm that 

 occurs within two weeks, before or after, is commonly given this name ; because 



