For on a sudden, after still and burning weather, the thermometer
suddenly falls from thirty to forty degrees; and out of the north-
west rushes a chilly hurricane, blowing fiercer and fiercer each day
toward nightfall, and lulling in the small hours, only to burst forth
again at sunrise. Parched are all lips and eyes; for the air is full
of dust, yea, even of gravel which cuts like hail. Aching are all
right-sides; for the sudden chill brings on all manner of liver
complaints and indigestions. All who can afford it, draw tight the
jalousies, and sulk in darkness; the leaves are parched, as by an
Atlantic gale; the air is filled with lurid haze, as in an English
north-east wind; and no man can breathe freely, or eat his bread with
joy, until the plague is past.
What is the cause of these mistrals; why all the cold air of Central
France should be suddenly seized with madness, and rush into the sea
between the Alps and the Pyrenees; whether the great heat of the sun,
acting on the Mediterranean basin, raises up thence--as from the Gulf
of Mexico--columns of warm light air, whose place has to be supplied
by colder and heavier air from inland; whether the north-west mistral
is, or is not, a diverted north-easter; an arctic current which, in
its right road toward the tropics across the centre of France, has
been called to the eastward of the Pyrenees (instead of, as usual, to
the westward), by the sudden demand for cold air,--all this let men
of science decide; and having discovered what causes the mistral,
discover also what will prevent it.
Pages:
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229