411 



electricity finds no more those groups of vesicular 

 vapours in the high regions of the air, I had 

 almost said that coating of clouds on which the 

 fluid can accumulate. 



We have here considered the cessation of the 

 breezes as the principal cause * of the equatorial 

 rains. These rains in each hemisphere last only 

 as long as the Sun has a declination homony- 

 mous with that hemisphere. It is necessary to 

 observe, that the absence of the breeze is not 

 always succeeded by a dead calm ; but that the 

 calm is often interrupted, particularly along the 

 western coasts of America, by bendavales, or 

 South-West and South-East winds. This phe- 

 nomenon seems to demonstrate, that the columns 

 of humid air, that rise in the northern equatorial 

 zone, sometimes flow off toward the South pole. 

 In fact, the countries situate under the torrid 

 zone, both North and South of the equator, fur- 

 nish during their summer, while the Sun passes 

 through their zenith, the maximum of difference 

 of temperature with the air of the heteronymous 

 pole. The southern temperate zone has it's 

 winter, while it rains to the North of the equa- 

 tor ; and while a mean heat prevails from 5° to 

 6° greater than in the time of drought, when the 



* I have in this discussion designedly excluded the un- 

 certain hypotheses, founded on the combinations of oxygen 

 and hydrogen, and on the property attributed to electricity 

 of forming and precipitating vesicular vapours. 



