In winter the port of Cochin is not to be entered, nor can any vessel quit it, because the winds blow with such impetuosity, that ships cannot remain at sea; and besides the west winds, which blow with such fury, bring to the mouth of the river so great a quantity of sand as prevents the possibility of ships of any size from entering it during six months of the year; but the east winds which blow during the other six months repel these sands, and render the entrance of the river free. At the strait of Babelmandel there are south-east winds which reign throughout the season, and are always succeeded by north-east. At St. Domingo there are two different winds which regularly rise almost every day, the one a sea wind proceeding from the east, and commences at 10 o'clock in the morning; the other a land wind comes from the west, rises at six or seven o'clock in the evening, and remains all night. There are many other facts of this nature to be extracted from travellers, the knowledge of which might perhaps lead to a history of the winds, which would be a useful work equally to navigation and physics. ARTICLE XV. OF IRREGULAR WINDS, HURRICANES, AND OTHER PHENOMENA, CAUSED BY THE AGITATION OF THE SEA AND AIR. The winds are more irregular on the land than on the sea, and in high places than in low. The mountains not only alter the direction of winds, but even produce some which are either constant or variable according to different causes. The melting of snow upon the summits of mountains, generally produces constant winds, which sometimes remain a considerable time; the vapours that are stopt by mountains accumulate there, and produce variable winds, very frequent in all climates: and there are as many variations in the motions of air, as there are inequalities on the surface of the earth. We can therefore give only examples, and relate circumstances which are attested; and as we are deficient in a course of observations on the variation of winds, and even of the seasons in different countries, we do not pretend to explain all the causes of these differences, but confine ourselves to those which appear the most probable. In straits, on all projecting coasts, at the extremity of all promontories, peninsulas and capes, and in all narrow bays, storms are frequent; but without these there are some seas much more tempestuous than others. The Indian ocean, the Japan and the Magellan seas, that of the African coast beyond the Canaries, and on the other side towards the coast of Natal and the Red Sea, are very liable to storms. The Atlantic is more stormy than the ocean, which from its tranquillity is called the Pacific Sea; this sea, however, is not absolutely tranquil, except between the tropics, for the nearer we approach the poles, the more we are subject to variable winds, whose sudden changes are frequently the cause of tempests.