You are here
قراءة كتاب Wind and Weather
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
WIND
AND
WEATHER
BY ALEXANDER McADIE
A. Lawrence Rotch Professor of Meteorology, Harvard
University and Director of the Blue Hill
Observatory
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1922,
By ALEXANDER McADIE.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1922.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| HOW THE WIND RUFFLES THE TOP OF A FOG BANK |
Frontispiece | |
| PAGE | ||
| FIG. 1. | THE TOWER OF THE WINDS | 13 |
| 2. | BOREAS—THE NORTH WIND | 19 |
| 3. | KAIKIAS—THE NORTHEAST WIND | 23 |
| 4. | APHELIOTES—THE EAST WIND | 29 |
| 5. | EUROS—THE SOUTHEAST WIND | 33 |
| 6. | NOTOS—THE SOUTH WIND | 37 |
| 7. | LIPS—THE SOUTHWEST WIND | 41 |
| 8. | ALL STORMS LEAD TO NEW ENGLAND | 45 |
| 9. | ZEPHYROS—THE WEST WIND | 49 |
| 10. | PATHS OF HIGH AND LOW, JANUARY, 1922 | 55 |
| 11. | SKIRON—THE NORTHWEST WIND | 59 |
| 12. | THE IDEALIZED STORM | 63 |
| 13. | TURNING OF WIND WITH ALTITUDE | 67 |
| 14. | VELOCITY OF SUMMER AND WINTER WINDS | 73 |
| 15. | BLUE HILL OBSERVATORY IN AN ICE STORM | 79 |
WIND AND WEATHER
WIND AND WEATHER
THE TOWER OF THE WINDS
In Athens on the north side and near the base of the hill on which the upper city—the Acropolis—is built, there is a small temple still standing, altho its walls were completed twenty-two centuries ago. It is known as the Tower of the Winds; but as a matter of fact, the citizens of Athens used it to tell the hour of the day and the seasonal position of the sun. It was a public timepiece. It served as a huge sun dial. Water from a spring on the hillside filled the basins of a water clock in the basement of the Tower. And so, whether the day was clear or cloudy the measure of the outflow of water indicated the time elapsed. Also there were markings or dials on each of the eight walls of the temple, and the position of the shadow of a marker indicated the seasonal advance or retreat of the sun as it moved north from the time of the winter solstice and then south after the summer solstice.
The sun is not an accurate time keeper and no one to-day runs his business or keeps engagements on sun time. But the old Athenians were quite content to do so; and their Tower served excellently for their needs. And they did what we moderns fail to do, namely, give distinctive names to the winds. They represented figuratively the characteristics of the weather as the wind blew from each of the eight cardinal directions.
Fig. 1. The Tower of the Winds
Erected in Athens, on the north side of the Acropolis,
B. C. 150
The allegorical figures of the winds used in this little book are reproductions of the eight bas-reliefs in the library of the Blue Hill Observatory, placed there by the late Professor A. Lawrence Rotch. They are copied from the frieze of the Tower of the Winds at Athens.
THE NAMES OF THE WINDS
Boreas, the north wind, is perhaps the most important of all winds. At Athens this a cold, boisterous wind from the mountains of Thrace. The noise of the gusts is so loud that the Greek sculptor symbolized the tumult by placing a conch shell in the mouth of Boreas. His modern namesake, the Bora of the Adriatic, is the same noisy, blustering, cold wind-rush from the north.
The northeast wind Kaikias is a trifle more pleasant looking than Boreas, but still not much to brag about. Master of the squall and thunderstorm, he carries in his shield an ample supply of hailstones, ready to spill them on defenseless humanity. He might well serve as the patron saint