es haul into the S. E., if the focus of attraction
be situated north of us, and so remain until just before the storm is to
break.

There are, however, a class of southerly summer winds which deserve more
particular notice. For two or three months in the year--say from the
middle of June to the 20th of August--storms on the eastern part of the
continent, except in wet seasons, are rare, and most of our rain is
derived from showers. During these periods belts of drought are frequent,
sometimes in one locality, and sometimes in another, extending with
considerable regularity from W. S. W. to E. N. E. in the course of the
counter-trade, while rain falls in frequent and almost daily showers to
the northward or southward of them. If the daily rains are at the north,
over the belt of drought, S. S. W. and S. W. by S. winds blow, sometimes
with cumuli or scud, during the middle of the day and afternoon, to
underlie the showery counter-trade on the north of the line of drought.
Thus, sometimes nearly every day for several days, the evaporated moisture
of the dry belt will be carried over to increase the store of those who
have a sufficient supply without. During the latter part of the afternoon
the clouds in the west may look very much like a gathering shower, but the
attractions of the counter-trade fifty or one or two hundred miles to the
north, will absorb them all, and at nightfall the wind will haul to the S.
W. on a line with the counter-trade, and die away.

If there be a drought on any given line of latitude, and frequent showers
or heavy rains at the south of it, although there may not be a like
surface-wind, with cumuli and fog, blowing from the north toward it, yet a
general, gentle set of the atmosphere, from the N. N. W., or N. W., or
other northerly point, toward the belt of rains, some distance above the
earth, will often be observable, with a barometer continually depressed,
and perhaps a cool atmosphere.

During set fair weather, when the attracting belt of rains is far north,
on the north shore of Long Island Sound, the wind, like a sea breeze, will
set in gently from about S. S. E. or S. by E. in the forenoon, blowing a
gentle breeze through the day, and hauling to W. S. W. on a line with the
trade at nightfall, and dying away. During a drought I have known this to
happen for seventeen successive days. It is obvious to an attentive
observer that this is the result of the influence of the sun in exciting
the