the trade winds _every where, all over the globe, over the land
and over the sea_.

Doubtless here some one will say, our upper current is a S. W. current.
True, the S. E. trade which enters the belt of rains, and issues out on
the north, a S. E. upper current or counter-trade, keeps that course until
it arrives at the northern limit of the surface trade, when, in _obedience
to another law_, which we shall notice, it gradually _decends near the
surface, curves to the eastward_, and becomes _the S. W. current which
passes over us_. And so we have the S. E. trade-wind of the South
Atlantic, with its moisture, warmth, electricity, and polarity, over, and
perhaps sometimes around us, dropping the electric rain which makes glad
our fields; giving us, when not prevented by other conditions, the balmy
air of spring, the Indian summer of autumn, and the mild mitigating
changes of winter; and thus, _our rivers, which run into the sea, return
to us again_.

But let us go back to the trade-wind region--the region of regularity and
uniformity--and examine somewhat more attentively its features, that we
may more fully understand the character of this counter-trade.

Here are 60 deg. at least of the 180 deg. of the earth's surface, and at its
largest diameter, covered in the course of the year, and of their travels,
by the trade-winds at the surface, the counter-trades above, and the belt
of rains and comparative calms, formed by the action of the opposite
trades, as they thread their way through each other, to assume the
relation of counter-trades. Truly the magnitude, simplicity, and
regularity of this machinery are most wonderful.

There are, however, some _apparent_ anomalies which deserve attention.
Here are most distinctly marked the _rainy_ and _dry seasons_, existing
side by side. Here are the _rainless portions_ of the earth, already but
briefly alluded to; here the _monsoons_, and another peculiarity, _viz._:
the _gathering of the counter-trades_ upon the western sides of the two
great oceans, into two _aerial currents of greater volume_, _analogous_
somewhat to the two _gulf streams_ of those oceans. Let us examine these
anomalies.

The rainy and dry seasons depend, as we have seen, upon the transit north
and south of the rainy belt, or belt of comparative calms. Wherever this
belt may happen on any given day to be situated, each side of it the
trades prevail, it is dry, the earth is parched, and vegetation withers.