Abstract
III. FROM the Cape of Good Hope, in a straight line toward the projecting eastern coasts of Brazil, mariners have found a peculiar streak of south-easterly winds. Between the island of Tristan da Cunha and the Cape, and northword and westward to the island of Fernando Noronha. this streak of powerful winds, with which nothing in the trade-wind region of the North Atlantic can compare, has its atmospheric current as sharply marked as the dark blue and rapid current of the Gulf Stream in the Narrows of Bemini. It is, doubtless, the region or band of most intensely acting south-east trades, and is probably due to the peculiar configuration of the shores of the South Atlantic, and to the wall of the South American Andes. It is a well-known fact that the volcanic cone of Teneriffe, which lies in the zone of north-east trades, intercepts the wind and gives it a lateral deflection; so that, while the trades are blowing strongly on the north-east side of the island, on the opposite side there is a distinctly-marked and carefully-measured calm shadow. Now, the chain of the Andes endeavours to esert on the south-eastern trades just such an influence as is exerted by the Canary Islands on the north-east trades. This influence, in the former case, suffices to throw off from the Continent of South America a large body of the south-east trades, and to deflect it to the eastward, giving it the character of a south-south-west wind, and, at the same time, by forcing a greater or more concentrated body of air into the regions northeast of Brazil, imparting an increased velocity and violence to the air-current. It is, therefore, in the air-current that the homeward-bound vessel from the Cape of Good Hope aims to steer, because she is sure of being wafted happily and swiftly to her destination.
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The Law of Storms Developed * . Nature 8, 164–166 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/008164d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/008164d0