adverse evidence which the
investigations of the former in relation to the course of the West Indian
storms, and their curving over the continent, furnish to the contrary, and
that which has herein before been stated in relation to the law of
curvature, it is obvious they are mistaken, for another and conclusive
reason.

In order to reach us from the Pacific in a direction from S. W. to N. E.,
it must pass the table lands and mountain ranges of Mexico and New Mexico,
and it would supply them bountifully, even if it did not thereby leave us
comparatively rainless and sterile. Every where currents passing from the
ocean _over mountain ranges_ part with a large share of their moisture.
Thus the counter-trade which curves over the Andes and over Peru, is
deprived of its moisture and leaves the western coast rainless. So in
degree of the counter-trade which curves over the Himalaya and Kuenlon
Mountains, and from there passes over the Desert of Cobi, to the north and
east--it is deprived by those elevated ranges of its moisture. So the
mountains on the south-western coast of South America are drenched with
rain, while Patagonia, which lies on the east of them is comparatively
dry. And so of every other country similarly situated.

Now the mountain ranges and table lands of Mexico are not thus supplied
with moisture. For the space of four months in Southern and less in
Northern Mexico, and in summer, and while the belt of the tropics is
extended up over them, they have rain and in daily showers which _travel
up from the south_, indicating the course of the counter-trade. (See
Bartlett's Personal Narrative, vol. ii. p. 286.) At other seasons, and
while we are bountifully supplied, they are dry. In short, there are no
two portions of the earth that differ more widely in regard to their
supply of moisture, and all their climatic characteristics and relations.
It is therefore, according to all analogy, impossible that our
counter-trade should come from the South Pacific across the continent and
below 35 deg., and in this also those gentlemen are mistaken.

Messrs. Espy and Redfield recognizing the existence of "a prevailing" S.
W. current, but considering the surface-winds beneath it as the principal
actors in producing the atmospherical conditions and changes, have
attributed no office to that current, except that of giving direction and
progression to our storms. This is their great mistake. It plays no such
unimportant part