The _east_ winds, which one does not care about in the British Islands during the spring time, are occasioned by the powerful northern current which rushes south from the northern regions in Europe. Dr. Buchan points out a very common mistake among even intelligent observers who shudder at the hard east winds. It is generally held that these winds are damp. They are unhealthy, but they are dry. It is quite true that many easterly winds are peculiarly moist; all that precede storms are so far damp and rainy; and it is owing to this circumstance that, on the east coast of Scotland, the east winds are searching and carry most of the annual rainfall there. But all of these moist easterly winds, however, soon turn to some westerly point. The real east wind, so much feared by invalids, does not turn to the west; it is exceeding dry. Curious is it that brain diseases, as well as consumption, reach their height in Britain while east winds prevail. Once in Edinburgh, during the early spring, I had rheumatic fever, and during my convalescence my medical adviser, Dr. Menzies, would not let me have a short drive until the wind changed to the west. The first thing I anxiously watched in the morning was the flag on the Castle; and for nearly two months it always waved from the east. How heart-depressing! Creatures are we in the hands of nature's messengers. We so much depend upon the weather for our happiness. Joyful are we when the honey-laden zephyr waves the long grass in June, or when "The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf." Compared with this, how terrible is Shakespeare's allusion to the appalling aspects of the storm:-- "I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks; and I have seen The ambitious ocean swell, and rage and foam, To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds; But never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire." CHAPTER XXIX CYCLONES AND ANTI-CYCLONES The criticism of the weather in the meteorological column of our daily newspapers invariably speaks of "cyclones." It is, therefore, advisable to give as plain an explanation of these as possible. Cyclones are "storm-winds." Their nature has to be carefully studied by meteorologists, who are industriously at work to ascertain some scientific basis for the atmospheric movements. What is the cause of the spiral movement in storm-winds? In their centre the depression of the barometer is lowest, because the atmosphere there is lightest. As the walls of the spiral are approached, the barometer rises.