ise to witness a heavy fall of snow, perhaps, and a continued driving N.
E. storm, in full blast; the snow whirling and settling in drifts under
the lee of every fence or building.

Can it be, you ask, that this driving wind is but an _incident_ of the
storm? the result of _attraction_, while the storm clouds are sailing
quietly and undisturbed on in the counter-trade above, directly over the
gale which is blowing below? It is even so. Nor has it "backed up," as it
is termed by those who have ascertained that it has commenced snowing
first, and cleared off first, at a point west of them. You saw, or might
have seen, the cirro-stratus cloud passing to the E. N. E. in the
afternoon, and until the snow-flakes filled the air, and the clouds became
invisible. You may still see that the wind will die away before the storm
breaks, and "come out" gently from the S. W., unless it should back into
the northward and westward, and in either event you may see the last of
the storm clouds, as you did see, or might have seen the first of them,
pass to the eastward. Toward night the wind dies away, and the storm
passes off abruptly, or the sky becomes clear in the N. W. Now you may see
the smooth stratus storm cloud, continuous, or breaking up into fragments
and passing off to the east, even at the edge which borders the clear sky
in the west or north-west, to be followed that evening or the next day, by
the north-west wind and its peculiar fair-weather scud.

I have given these as instances illustrating the manner in which rain and
snow storms originate the surface easterly winds in winter.

But it must not be supposed that they commence with precisely the same
appearances in every case in winter; much less in summer. There is very
great diversity in this respect, in different seasons, and in different
storms during the same season. A great many different and accurate
descriptions might be given, if time and space would permit, which all
would recognize as truthful. Very frequently in summer, and sometimes in
winter, the wind will set in from the eastward, and blow fresh toward a
storm, before the condensation in the trade, which forms the eastern and
approaching edge of the storm, has assumed the form of a distinct cloud.
Not unfrequently, when it is calm next the surface, a narrow stratum of
easterly wind, a half a mile or a mile above the earth, may be seen with a
continuous fog, condensing, but not in considerable patches like the