Salt added to snow
increases the evaporation and the cold. This was the office of the
northeast wind: it made the snow damp, and increased its bulk; but
then it rained a little, and froze, thawing at the same time. The
air was full of fog and snow and rain. And then the wind changed,
went back round the circle, reversing everything, like dragging a cat
by its tail. The mercury approached zero. This was nothing
uncommon. We know all these winds. We are familiar with the
different "forms of water."
All this was only the prologue, the overture. If one might be
permitted to speak scientifically, it was only the tuning of the
instruments. The opera was to come, - the Flying Dutchman of the air.
There is a wind called Euroclydon: it would be one of the Eumenides;
only they are women. It is half-brother to the gigantic storm-wind
of the equinox. The Euroclydon is not a wind: it is a monster. Its
breath is frost. It has snow in its hair. It is something terrible.
It peddles rheumatism, and plants consumption.
The Euroclydon knew just the moment to strike into the discord of the
weather in New England. From its lair about Point Desolation, from
the glaciers of the Greenland continent, sweeping round the coast,
leaving wrecks in its track, it marched right athwart the other
conflicting winds, churning them into a fury, and inaugurating chaos.
It was the Marat of the elements.
