The Cyclones, or rotary hurricanes, offer a most inviting field for
observation and study, and are an important branch of our subject. But
we are obliged to omit the consideration of these topics, to be taken
up, possibly, at some other opportunity. The theory of the Cyclones
may be justly considered as original with our countryman, Mr.
Redfield. Colonel Reid, Mr. Piddington, and other learned Englishmen
have adopted it; and so much has been settled through the labors of
these eminent men, that intelligent seamen need fear these storms no
longer. By the aid of maps and sailing-directions they may either
escape them altogether, or boldly take advantage of their outward
sweep, and shorten their passages.
We have yet to ascertain the causes of the many local winds prevailing
both on the ocean and the land, and which do not appear to be
influenced by any such general principle as the Trades or the
Monsoons.
The force of air in motion gives us the gentle breeze, the gale, or
the whirlwind. At one hundred miles an hour it prostrates forests. In
the West Indies, thirty-two pound cannon have been torn by it from
their beds, and carried some distance through the air.
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