INTRODUCTION. 
99 
of tlie table. A full discussion of this interesting and important branch 
of the climatology of the State will only be practicable when much am- 
pler material shall have been collected. But enough is here given to 
exhibit the general features of the anemology of the State, and, it is 
hoped, to induce a wider interest in the subject, and fuller records. We 
do not in this latitude sufficiently appreciate the importance of the pre- 
valent movements of the atmospheric currents in determining climates. 
The reason is our entire exemption from those deleterious and destruc- 
tive winds which afflict so many of the fairest portions of the earth, as 
tlie hot and poisonous Simoom of Egypt and the neighboring countries ; 
the burning Sirocco of Sicily and South Italy, and the frigid and tempes- 
tuous Bora from the Alps that ravages its northern coasts, the fierce 
Euroclydon ; the stormy Levanter of the eastern Mediterranean shores; 
the hot and dust-laden Solano of Spain ; the furious Pampero of the 
South American plains, or the biting and arid Puna of Peru ; or even the 
unwholesome and disagreeable East Winds of Great Britain ; or the North- 
easters of the North Atlantic States ; or the violent and freezing North- 
ers of Texas and the great Plains ; or the terrible Arctic gales that sweep 
the great prairie states of the Northwest. In this favored territory of North 
Carolina there is no distinct periodicity to the system of winds; the cur- 
rents of the atmosphere are continually “boxing the compass,” at least 
through the southern and western octants, hardly ever retaining one di- 
rection more than a few days together ; the prevalent sweep of the great 
westerly continental current preventing the access of the damp and chill 
sea air, from the E. and N. E. ; the cold N. W. winds being arrested 
and broken up in their passage across the numerous ridges of the Appala- 
chians, among which also they are tempered by mingling with the warm 
southwest currents that roll up the intervening valleys; and the humid 
S. W. wind, (pluvius Auster) being drained of its excess of moisture and 
tropical heat in the ascent of the long southw r est, Gulf-ward slopes, 
and later, the high table lands and lofty chains of the same mountain sys- 
tem, on the northwest border; so that none of the great continental cur- 
rents, from the N. E., the N. W., or the S. W., reach this region, until 
they are quite bereft of their original and disagreeable characteristics. 
But as already intimated, it is not intended to attempt at present any 
thing like a general or exhaustive treatment of this department of our 
climatology. 
Summary . — It may be fairly claimed upon the above exhibit, pre- 
liminary, brief and inadequate as it necessarily is, that there are few re- 
gions of the habitable globe where all the elements of climate are more 
admirably blended and attempered, both to human comfort and physical 
