parent plant, where it may grow in the free
air, not overshadowed. Without winds,
winter would be one monotony of frost, and
summer one monotony of sun. The crisp
snow, and the woolly clouds, the delightful
rustle of the, summer forest, and the waving of
the autumn corn, the glory of the sunset, and
the wonder of the rainbow,—the world would
have wanted these had not the winds been
taught to do their Master's bidding. After
all, wind and rain prove more than the
necessity of carrying umbrellas. And, after
all, Tom was not stupid, when he rejoiced in
telling how—

. . . "the wind began again with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, Nature leading me."

Of course, it is understood that violent
friction of the lower surface of a wind upon
the upper surface of the sea, will raise the
waves. The sea, in a gale, is a condition which
all people understand. There are, however,
certain winds, obeying their own laws, which
produce storms at sea of a peculiar nature.
These are typhoons and hurricanes.

The hurricane is a remarkable storm wind,
peculiar to certain portions of the world. It
rarely takes its rise beyond the tropics, and it
is the only storm to dread within the region
of the trade-winds. In the temperate zone,
hurricanes do now and then occur, which
crossing the Atlantic from America, strike
our own coasts. We had one in 1836, and
we had one last year. But, on our side of
the equator, the home of the hurricane is
about the region of the West Indies; in the
southern hemisphere, they favour Rodriguez
and the Mauritius. Furthermore, they have
their seasons. The West Indian occur from
August to October. The Rodriguez, in the hot
months of the other hemisphere. Furthermore,
it is the nature of a hurricane to travel
round and round, as well as forward, very
much as a corkscrew travels through a cork,
only the circles are all flat, and described by a
rotatory wind upon the surface of the water.
The rotatory wind blows the sea with it
in a rotatory current; within the circle of the
hurricane the air is calm, and its diminished
pressure lifts the water up in a great storm
wave, which, advancing with the hurricane,
surrounded by its current, plays the deluge, if
it strike upon a shore; but, otherwise, rolls
on and on, while the wind dances round and
round it; thus, twisting circles while it
marches on its main path— that main path
being itself a grander curve. Hurricanes always
travel away from the equator. North of the
equator, the great storm, revolving as it
comes, rolls from the east towards the west:
inclining from the equator, that is, northward.
It always comes in that way; always
describes in its main course the curve of an
ellipse, which generally crosses the West
India Islands, and presently, pursuing the
ellipse, marches to the north-east from the
coast of Florida, treading the waves of the
Atlantic. In the southern hemisphere, hurricanes
come from the north-east, and pursue
a course away from the equator precisely
similar. No hurricane ever commenced its
main course from the west; but, it is obvious
that a ship, revolving in its circles, will find
the wind in every quarter in turn; and that a
hurricane's main course is from the west in
the last portion of its travels. Take an egg,
and place it on an atlas map, so that its small
end shall be near the coast of Florida, and its
lower edge rest on the Leeward Islands; take
a pencil, and, beginning eastward of these
islands, trace the outline of your egg towards
the west, turning its corner, and still tracing
on towards the north-east, as if travelling
to Europe: leave off now, and you have
sketched the ordinary path of a West Indian
hurricane.

Thunder and lightning frequently attend a
hurricane, and, more especially in the southern
hemisphere, dense sheets of rain. Clearly, it
is most important that a ship's captain, overtaken
by a hurricane, should know the nature
and exact course of the storm. A horn-book
is now published, by the use of which he
readily obtains this knowledge, which enables
him to put his ship so as she can ride safely
until the hurricane is gone. Without such
knowledge, puzzled by the changing wind, he
perhaps drives before it, and is whirled round,
circle after circle, dragged through the very
road of danger; or, he escapes into the middle
of a circle, has a little breathing time, and
presently the crash returns; or, he gets out
of the main course, and, through ignorance,
encounters it again. Shipwrecks innumerable
have been caused in this way. In the present
day, though we have not yet established a
full theory concerning hurricanes, the sailor
has been taught to step out of their path;
and that is something practical, for which a
naval country owes its thanks (perhaps
something more) to Colonel Reid and Mr.
Piddington.

The typhoon, a relation of the hurricane's,
is of Chinese extraction. It is met with, only
in the China seas, not so far south as the Island
of Mindanao, nor so far north as Corea, except
upon the eastern borders of Japan. A typhoon
walks abroad not oftener than about once
every three or four years; and that is quite
often enough. You may believe anything of a
typhoon. Robert Fortune says, that when he
was at sea in a typhoon, a fish weighing thirty
or forty pounds was blown out of the water,
and fell through the skylight into the cabin.
That might be believed of a typhoon from a
less trustworthy informant.

Of local storms and currents caused, in-land
or out at sea, by inequalities of temperature,
as, for example, by the warm current of the
gulf-stream, we need not particularly speak.
The storms and the rain-torrents of Cape
Horn, where one hundred and fifty-three