WINDS, 8CC. 



161 



her; as used to be specified in the beginning of the 

 last century, the clause in the policies is now extend- 

 ed to Christmas-day, or the 25th of December, 



Of the JVorth'West Wind. 



The north-west wind, the third, and almost the 

 principal, of those that prevail in the United States, 

 differs from the south-west in two respects : it is es- 

 sentially cold, dry, elastic, violent, and even tempes- 

 tuous; it is more frequent in winter than in sum- 

 mer, and more habitual on the Atlantic coast than 

 west of the Alleghany mountains, that is, in the basins 

 of the St, Lawrence, Ohio, and Mississippi, 



On the Atlantic coast, the north-west wind, having 

 traversed the continent, sometimes too brings with it 

 storms of rain or snow, or even of hail ; but these 

 clouds belong rather to other currents of air, as the 

 north-east, and sovith-west, which it beats back, and 

 robs as it drives them before it. At other times they 

 are the product of the humid surfaces it finds on its 

 way ; as the five great lakes that communicate with 

 the river St. La.wrence, the marshes, and even the 

 rivers taken in the length of their course. This is 

 the reason why under the lee of these lakes, and of 

 the long lines of the Mississippi and Ohio, the north- 

 west wind is characterised as wet in winter, and 

 stormy in summer, which it is not in other places: 

 For from Charleston to Halifax the idea annexed to 

 the north-west is that of a violent, cold, unpleasant 

 wind, but healthy, elastic, and reinvigorating the 



languid powers. It has this degree of treachery only 



K 2 . ' 



