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CLIMATE. 
Physical geographers place this country in the zone of the 
northeast winds ; and these northerly winds prevail on the Isth- 
mus from the middle of December to the end of March, and 
generally blow with considerable strength. They are cool and 
damp winds, and are commonly accompanied with more or less 
rain on the mountains. At Chivela, which fronts the main pass 
through the mountains, there is a strong breeze throughout the 
entire year, and almost the whole time from the north. These 
winds come from the Gulf, and travel along with the warm 
stream, which, coming westward through the Caribbean Sea, 
turns northward round the Antilles, and passes into the Atlantic 
Ocean. The accompanying winds reaching the shore of the 
Gulf at the Isthmus, being saturated with watery vapor to the 
greatest extent they can hold in solution, and meeting with the 
sloping plains of Yera Cruz, and which, at all times of the year, 
are cooler than the ocean, are necessarily cooled in their west- 
ward course across the table-lands : they immediately deposit 
the greater portion of the watery vapor which they had held 
suspended ; and when they have reached the summit-level and 
the mountain-chains, the increased cold condenses almost all 
residual moisture which had escaped deposition below. What- 
ever little (if any) that may have escaped deposition is not 
poured out as rain on the Pacific slope, for two reasons : first, 
on account of the aspect of the land, which, looking southerly, 
is warmed by the sun to a greater extent than the northern 
slope, and compels these northerly winds, already cooled, to ex- 
pand, and rise higher in the atmosphere ; and, secondly, the 
breeze which blows oif the Pacific shore being warm, and meet- 
ing the northers coming through the passes and over the hill- 
tops, warms them suddenly, converts the mists into invisible 
vapor, and presents to the eye of the spectator the appearance 
of the rain-clouds suddenly vanishing into thin air when they 
pass southward over the hills. The cool wind of the north has 
a tendency at all times to occupy the lower stratum of air, owing 
to its density ; and hence it is that it escapes southward along 
the mountain-passes, through which it blows with considerable 
violence when the northers prevail, sweeping down through the 
narrow gorges in the mountains leading from the elevated table- 
