WIXDS — LIGHTNING. 



accompanies a north-west wind it soon shifts into the south- 

 west quarter, and blows hard. 



Northerly winds bring cloudy weather ; and when very light, 

 they are often accompanied by a thick fog : it is also worth 

 notice that they almost always occur about the full and change 

 of the moon. 



North-east and northerly winds bring gloomy overcast 

 weather, with much rain ; sometimes they blow hard and hang 

 in the N.N.E., but it is more common for them to draw round 

 to the westward. South-easterly winds also bring much rain, 

 they are not frequent, but they blow hard, and as the gale 

 increases it hauls southward. During winter the winds are 

 chiefly from the north-west, and in summer they are more 

 frequently south-west. Though fogs occur with light easterly 

 or northerly winds, they do not often last through the day. 



Gales of wind, as well as squalls, are more sudden, and blow 

 more furiously from the southern quarter, between south-west 

 and south-east, than from other directions. 



Wind from the east is rarely lasting, or strong ; it generally 

 brings fine weather, and may be expected in April, May, June, 

 and July, rather than at other times, but intervals of fine 

 weather (short indeed), with light breezes from E.S.E. to 

 E.N.E., occur occasionally throughout the year. 



Neither lightning nor thunder are at all common, but when 

 the former occurs easterly wind is expected to follow. If 

 lightning should be seen in the south-east while the barometer 

 is low,* a hard gale from that quarter may be expected. South- 

 east and southerly gales last longer than those from the west- 

 ward, and they throw a very heavy sea upon the southern 

 shores. In the winter there is not, generally, so much wind as 

 in the summer, and in the former season the weather, though 

 colder, is more settled, and considerably drier. 



* A seaman may naturally ask here, and at other passag^es where refe- 

 rence is made to the barometer, " What is considered low for that place ?" 

 and as a reply may be obtained more satisfactorily by consulting- the 

 Meteorological Journal, in the appendix, than by receiving- an answer 

 in figures (barometers and direction of wind varying so much), I will 

 beg- him to look at that Journal. 



