THE EQUATORIAL CLOUD-RING. 
171 
CHAPTER IX. 
THE EQUATORIAL CLOUD-RING. 
Description of the Equatorial Doldrums, § 346. — Oppressive Weather, 348. — The Of- 
fices performed by Clouds in the terrestrial Economy, 349. — The Barometer and 
Thermometer under the Cloud-ring, 360. — Its Offices, 353. — How its Vapors are 
brought by the Trade-Winds, 361. — Breadth of the Cloud-ring, 363. — How it 
would appear if seen from one of the Planets, 364. — Observations at Sea interest- 
ing, 368. 
345. Seafaring people have, as if by common consent, divided 
the ocean off into regions, and characterized them according to 
the winds ; e. g., there are the "trade-wind regions," the "varia- 
bles," the "horse latitudes," the "doldrums," &c. The "horse 
latitudes" are the belts of calms and light airs 101) which bor- 
der the Polar edge of the northeast trades. They were so called 
from the circumstance that vessels formerly bound from New En- 
gland to the West Indies, with a deck load of horses, were often 
so delayed in this calm belt of Cancer, that, for the want of water 
for their animals, they were compelled to throw a portion of them 
overboard. 
346. The " equatorial doldrums" is another of these calm places 
(§ 104). Besides being a region of calms and baffling winds, it is 
a region noted for its rains and clouds, which make it one of the 
most oppressive and disagreeable places at sea. The emigrant 
ships from Europe for Australia have to cross it. They are often 
baffled in it for two or three weeks ; then the children and the 
passengers who are of delicate health suffer most. It is a fright- 
ful grave-yard on the way-side to that golden land. 
347. A vessel bound into the southern hemisphere from Europe 
or America, after clearing the region of variable winds and cross- 
ing the " horse latitudes," enters the northeast trades. Here the 
mariner jfinds the sky sometimes mottled with clouds, but for the 
most part clear. Here, too, he finds his barometer rising and fall- 
ing under the ebb and flow of a regular atmospherical tide, which 
gives a high and low barometer every day with such regularity 
I 
