r the sea breeze set in next morning. The land breeze prevailed
during the night, and was so cool as to render fires pleasant to the
natives, which I observed they constantly kindled in the evening. I
was particularly struck with the phenomena of the cloud surrounding
the mountain, when none was ever seen in any other part of the sky,
and none then till after the sea breeze set in, in the morning, which
it did with wonderful regularity. The mountain stood in bold relief,
and its top could always be seen from where the ship lay, above the
cloud, even when it was the densest and blackest, with the lightning
flashing and the thunder rolling, as it did every day. I passed up
through the cloud once, and I know, therefore, how violently it
rains, especially at the lower side of the cloud. This rain never
extends beyond the base of the mountain;[4] and all round the horizon
there is eternally a cloudless sky. The dews, however, are very
heavy, and there seems to be no suffering for want of rain. That this
state of things continues all the year, I have no doubt, from what an
American, by name Sears, who had spent four years there, told me; he
had seen no change in regard to the rain.

CALEB WILLIAMS.

Providence, R. I.

Similar citations might be made to show that the sea breeze is induced by
the same cause which forms the clouds over the land--that it is frequently
wanting for three or four days under a vertical sun, and that the land
breeze blows gently and not with corresponding force where there is no
surface trade, or where it is deflected, not reversed.

A succession of showers passing across the country to the north, within
one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles, almost always produces a
southerly wind to the southward of them. There is more that is peculiar
about these belts of showers. Although they consist of large
highly-electrified cumuli, there is a strong tendency to cirro-stratus
condensation in the lower part of the trade over them; and it is that
condensation rather than the cumuli, which attracts the surface atmosphere
from the south. They would be storms, if the atmosphere had not a
summer-tropical tendency to showers. There is, too, a tendency in these
belts to extend to the south, and it is generally, as far as I have
observed, the extension southerly of those belts, by the formation of new
showers which te