Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1879 — Storms Are Foundlings. [ARTICLE]

Storms Are Foundlings.

When we are asked to give an account of the birth of a storm, we are reluctantly compelled to admit that our storms are, almost without exception, foundlings, and that, as the precise conditions to which they owe their origin are, for the most part, shrouded in uncertainty, warm discussions "nt times arise as to the parish whence they have set out on their wanderings. Dove said long ago that storms were due to the interference of the polar current or the east wind with the equatorial current or west wind. He gave the winds these names, because on his view the east winds really consisted of air flowing from the North or South pole toward the equator, which was modified in the direction of its motion by its change of latitude; while west winds were really due to air endeavoring to make its way back to the pole from the equator, whose course was in its turn modified by its own moving from lower to higher latitudes. To the conflict of these two grand currents, east and west winds, Dove attributed all our storms; but he did not attempt to explain how the currents came into collision. These views, however correct on their cosmical principles, have been superseded, of late years at least, as regards the explanation of our winds,-by the modem views of the relation between the wind and the distribution of barometrical pressure; but, unfortunately, we still remain in comparative ignorance of the ultimate causes to which the distribution of pressure, or the rise and fall of the barometer, are due.— Popular Science Monthly.