Yet they are the angels of the seasons, these air-spirits, sent by an allwise Providence to bring the rain and the snow, and the sunshine and storm in their season, to give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; that while man shall dwell on earth, seedtime and harvest and summer and winter may not cease. So they wander, clothing the tropics with emerald cloaks of strangest beauty, and robing the poles with ermine and crystal: painting with rainbow-tints the autumn leaves, and touching with virgin blush the orchards in spring; in all things obeying the decree of Him who hath set the seasons in order and made everything beautiful in its time. CHAPTER IV. TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. “O sad and mournful wind! From what wild depths of human pain and sorrow Could’st thou those tones of restless anguish borrow As of a soul that dreams of no to-morrow, O sad and mournful wind! O, thou art fierce and wild! Thy mighty chariot through the black skies lashing, The cloud-shapes round the mountain-summits dashing, The waves of ocean round the wrecked bark crashing-- O, thou art fierce and wild!” Men find no difficulty in recognizing law and system in the phenomena that are of constant or frequent recurrence. That which is most difficult to explain, may pass without a serious thought so long as it manifests no stupendous or sudden power. The water may wear away the stone for centuries and its progress be unheeded by those who daily visit the pool. So all observe and admire the beauty and order that prevails in the system of winds hitherto described. Their movements seem so simple and natural, that people take them as a matter of course. Rather, we should say, they may be depended upon with such certainty that the laws which they followed were unheeded for more than six thousand years. Relying on result, men gave themselves no concern about principle. But in the sudden storm, the cyclone or tempest that comes sweeping the land with hardly any warning, flooding and destroying, men find mystery. And who is not justly awed thereby? What other power so easily and frequently wrecks and ravages? Who may point out its course or stay its progress? And indeed it would seem difficult at first to find any law or system that controls the motion of the storm. If a rain storm always came from the same direction; if unusually high winds always blew from the same quarters, just as the moderate breezes of spring and summer can always be expected from the same general direction, it would appear that there was much greater subordination to definite law. But what can be more perplexing than to have a storm blow violently from one quarter for a time, and after a brief calm to blow with equal violence the other way? Can such phenomena be explained by any principles hitherto discovered?