United States or Venezuela ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then a westerly gale sprang up, which lasted nine days, during which the Nonsuch, under close-reefed canvas, drove southward to the latitude of Madeira, where the ship encountered calms and light variable winds for five days before falling in with the trade-winds; after which the troubles of the voyagers were over.
"There are latitudes close to the trade-winds," said Ready, "where the wind is not certain, where ships have been becalmed for weeks; the crews have exhausted the water on board, and they have suffered dreadfully. We call them the Horse latitudes why, I do not know. But it is time for us to leave off, and for Master William to go into the house."
Now even under the most favorable circumstances, with trade-winds and weather always in our favor, we can not by any chance hope to make more than ten or twelve miles a day, so that the voyage cannot possibly be performed under a period of two months.
"Is it the sun which produces these winds?" "Yes, the extreme heat of the sun between the tropics rarefies the air as the earth turns round, and the trade-winds are produced by the rushing in of the less heated air." "Yes, William; and the trade-winds produce what they call the Gulf Stream," observed Ready. "How is that? I have heard it spoken of, papa."
Ever since there have been returns of the disease almost annually. It is generally preceded by unsettled weather, and westerly or southerly winds. Its course is generally from east to west. It lasts for about a month, and passes off as fine weather and steady trade-winds set in. In many cases it is fatal to old people and those who have been previously weakened by pulmonary diseases.
There are only rows and rows of houses painted gray, with here and there a white one, or a glass conservatory front. But the fog and dust all summer gray these, too, and when the trade-winds blow hard it takes the smoke out over the east bay, and makes that as gray as the city. And yet the city doesn't look sad.
He described the course of the voyage from Lisbon to the East, the currents, the trade-winds and monsoons, the harbours, the islands, the shoals, the sunken rocks and dangerous quicksands, and he accompanied his work with various maps and charts, both general and special, of land and water, rarely delineated before his day, as well as by various astronomical and mathematical calculations.
It is by no means an easy problem in meteorology to show how these causes act in every case; and perhaps it is one which will never be so fully solved as to admit of very popular enunciation applicable to all climates. In the most important and useful class of these aërial currents, called, par excellence, and with so much picturesque truth, "the Trade-winds," the explanation is not difficult.
He ascribes the origin of this current to the power of the trade-winds, which, blowing always in the same direction, carry the waters of the Atlantic ocean to the westward, till they are stopped by the opposing continent on the west of the Gulf of Mexico, and are thus accumulated there, and run down the Gulf of Florida. Philos. Trans. V. 71, p. 335.
The trade-winds waft the traveller on his way when he goes toward the west; should he take the contrary direction and start via England to the East, he must experience many rough days and nights upon the sea. We saw the steamers from England battling against the monsoon, which only served to push us steadily and smoothly on. Let all my readers make due note of this westward, not eastward.
Word Of The Day