230 winds; climate. 



arise where winds are forced by any cause to blow 

 towards each other in opposite directions, or where 

 high winds sweep past columns of air shut in 

 between, for instance, walls, houses, or mountains. 

 If the air that is thus at rest, or relatively at rest, 

 is on the right hand side of a person facing the 

 current, it will take a twisting motion in a direction 

 contrary to that of the hands of a watch lying on 

 its back. If, however, the still air be on the left 

 of the stream, it will begin to turn in the same 

 direction as the watch-hands. 



Storms are whirlwinds moving onwards in a 

 certain direction. The violence of their twisting 

 motion is the greater, the more the main current 

 that gives rise to them has to struggle with 

 resistances, and being stopped by them, is turned 

 from its original course. But contrary winds are 

 not the only resistances of this kind, such are also 

 presented by lofty mountain chains. 



The hurricanes or tornados of the West Indies, 

 so well known for their frightful fury, arise where 

 the belt of the trade-winds passes into that of the 

 calms. They may be set up— either by an encroach- 

 ment of the south-east trade-wind, which, after it 

 has passed the equator, gradually strives to take a 

 south-westerly direction in the zone of the north- 

 east " trades, " — or by a falling or forcible descent 

 of the upper or return trade -wind into the region 



