Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Sky Is Then Constantly Without
Clouds; And If One Should Appear, It Is A Phenomenon That Engages The
Whole Attention Of The Inhabitants.
A breeze from the east, and from
east-north-east, blows with violence.
As it brings with it air always
of the same temperature, the vapours cannot become visible by cooling.
About the end of February and the beginning of March, the blue of the
sky is less intense, the hygrometer indicates by degrees greater
humidity, the stars are sometimes veiled by a slight stratum of
vapour, and their light is no longer steady and planetary; they are
seen twinkling from time to time when at 20 degrees above the horizon.
The breeze at this period becomes less strong, less regular, and is
often interrupted by dead calms. The clouds accumulate towards
south-south-east, appearing like distant mountains, with outlines
strongly marked. From time to time they detach themselves from the
horizon, and traverse the vault of the sky with a rapidity which
little corresponds with the feeble wind prevailing in the lower strata
of the air. At the end of March, the southern region of the atmosphere
is illumined by small electric explosions. They are like
phosphorescent gleams, circumscribed by vapour. The breeze then shifts
from time to time, and for several hours together, to the west and
south-west. This is a certain sign of the approach of the rainy
season, which begins at the Orinoco about the end of April. The blue
sky disappears, and a grey tint spreads uniformly over it. At the same
time the heat of the atmosphere progressively increases; and soon the
heavens are no longer obscured by clouds, but by condensed vapours.
The plaintive cry of the howling apes begins to be heard before
sunrise. The atmospheric electricity, which, during the season of
drought, from December to March, had been constantly, in the day-time,
from 1.7 to 2 lines, becomes extremely variable from the month of
March. It appears nil during whole days; and then for some hours the
pith-balls diverge three or four lines. The atmosphere, which is
generally, in the torrid as well as in the temperate zone, in a state
of positive electricity, passes alternately, for eight or ten minutes,
to the negative state. The season of rains is that of storms; and yet
a great number of experiments made during three years, prove to me
that it is precisely in this season of storms we find the smallest
degree of electric tension in the lower regions of the atmosphere. Are
storms the effect of this unequal charge of the different
superincumbent strata of air? What prevents the electricity from
descending towards the earth, in air which becomes more humid after
the month of March? The electricity at this period, instead of being
diffused throughout the whole atmosphere, appears accumulated on the
exterior envelope, at the surface of the clouds. According to M.
Gay-Lussac it is the formation of the cloud itself that carries the
fluid toward its surface. The storm rises in the plains two hours
after the sun has passed the meridian; consequently a short time after
the moment of the maximum of diurnal heat within the tropics. It is
extremely rare in the islands to hear thunder during the night, or in
the morning. Storms at night are peculiar to certain valleys of
rivers, having a peculiar climate.
What then are the causes of this rupture of the equilibrium in the
electric tension of the air? of this continual condensation of the
vapours into water? of this interruption of the breezes? of this
commencement and duration of the rainy seasons? I doubt whether
electricity has any influence on the formation of vapours. It is
rather the formation of these vapours that augments and modifies the
electrical tension. North and south of the equator, storms or great
explosions take place at the same time in the temperate and in the
equinoctial zone. Is there an action propagated through the great
aerial ocean from the temperate zone towards the tropics? How can it
be conceived, that in that zone where the sun rises constantly to so
great a height above the horizon, its passage through the zenith can
have so powerful an influence on the meteorological variations? I am
of opinion that no local cause determines the commencement of the
rains within the tropics; and that a more intimate knowledge of the
higher currents of air will elucidate these problems, so complicated
in appearance. We can observe only what passes in the lower strata of
the atmosphere. The Andes are scarcely inhabited beyond the height of
two thousand toises; and at that height the proximity of the soil, and
the masses of mountains, which form the shoals of the aerial ocean,
have a sensible influence on the ambient air. What we observe on the
table-land of Antisana is not what we should find at the same height
in a balloon, hovering over the Llanos or the surface of the ocean.
We have just seen that the season of rains and storms in the northern
equinoctial zone coincides with the passage of the sun through the
zenith of the place,* (* These passages take place, in the fifth and
tenth degrees of north latitude between the 3rd and the 16th of April,
and between the 27th of August and the 8th of September.) with the
cessation of the north-east breezes, and with the frequency of calms
and bendavales, which are stormy winds from south-east and south-west,
accompanied by a cloudy sky. I believe that, in reflecting on the
general laws of the equilibrium of the gaseous masses constituting our
atmosphere, we may find, in the interruption of the current that blows
from an homonymous pole, in the want of the renewal of air in the
torrid zone, and in the continued action of an ascending humid
current, a very simple cause of the coincidence of these phenomena.
While the north-easterly breeze blows with all its violence north of
the equator, it prevents the atmosphere which covers the equinoctial
lands and seas from saturating itself with moisture.
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