Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

2U WINDS LIGHTNING. accompanies a north-west wind it soon shifts into the south- west quarter, and blows hard. Northerly winds bring cloudy weather ; and when very light, tliey are often accompanied by a thick fog : it is also worth notice that they almost always occur about the full and change of the moon. North-east and northerly winds bring gloomy overcast weather, with much rain ; sometimes they blow hard and hang in the N.N.E., but it is more common for them to draw round to the westward. South-easterly winds also bring much rain, they are not frequent, but they blow hard, and as the gale increases it hauls southward. During winter the winds are chiefly from the north-west, and in summer they are more frequently south-west. Though fogs occur with light easterly or northerly winds, they do not often last through the day. Gales of wind, as well as squalls, are more sudden, and blow more furiously from the southern quarter, between south-west and south-east, than from other directions. Wind from the east is rarely lasting, or strong ; it generally brings fine weather, and may be expected in April, May, June, and July, rather than at other times, but intervals of fine weather (short indeed), with light breezes from E.S.E. to E.N.E., occur occasionally throughout the year. Neither liffhtnino- nor thunder are at all common, but when the former occurs easterly wind is expected to follow. If liffhtninff should be seen in the south-east while the barometer is low,* a hard gale from that quarter may be expected. South- east and southerly gales last longer than those from the west- ward, and they throw a very heavy sea upon the southern shores. In the winter there is not, generally, so much wind as in the summer, and in the former season the weather, though colder, is more settled, and considerably drier. • A seaman may naturally ask here, and at other passages where refe- rence is made to the barometer, " What is considered low for that place ?" and as a reply may be obtained more satisfactorily by consulting the Meteorological Journal, in the appendix, than by receiving an answer in figures (barometers and direction of wind varying so much), I will beg: him to look at that Journal.