قراءة كتاب Wind and Weather

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Wind and Weather

Wind and Weather

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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WIND
AND
WEATHER

BY ALEXANDER McADIE

A. Lawrence Rotch Professor of Meteorology, Harvard
University and Director of the Blue Hill
Observatory

 

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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

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

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