WINDS, Sec. 



endeavours to pass over it ; but is turned back, by the 

 trade-wind which it meets from the east, particu- 

 larly in the summer, and it is owing to their union 

 that the south-west wind blows with redoubled 

 strength in the United States, 



Lastly, the central portion of the great vortex, 

 kept in equipoise by opposite motions, is the seat and 

 cause of the variable winds, suffocating calms, and 

 consequent storms and waterspouts so peculiar to 

 the Gulf and Florida coast,* Hence can be under- 

 stood, how the atmospheric gulf of Mexico, by send- 

 ing out immeasurable quantities of air from the 

 south-west, along the slopes of the Mississippi, shall 

 *tand in need of a corresponding supply from the 

 north, along the coast of the Atlantic. Thus while 

 we are informed of a hurricane in the north of the 

 United States, and particularly on lake Erie, with a 

 north-east or north-west wind, we also hear of a 

 hurricane on the coast of Louisiana and Florida with 

 northerly winds. This singular correspondence of 

 time and action between the hurricanes of the gulf 

 and those of the continents, even in places far to the 

 north, was first explained by Dr. Franklin, who by 

 comparing the times of day at which a hurricane, 

 that traversed the continent from Boston to Florida, 

 in 1757, was felt at different places, found that the 

 disturbance of the air did not commence at Boston till 

 several hours after its commencement on the coast of 

 the gulf, and that from place to place it was earlier 

 or later according to the distance. The hurricane 

 being first felt at the points to which the air was 



t S«t account of Florida in th« lath vol. Wonders of Nat. and Art, 



