The most general preliminaries to _sudden storms_ are perfect calms; curiously variable breezes, with strong squalls; singular agitation of the sea, together with thick snow, which often changes from flakes to powder, and falls in such profusion, as to occasion an astonishing gloominess and obscurity in the atmosphere. If the snow clear away, the gale is often at hand, whilst a luminousness on the horizon, resembling the ice-blink, sometimes points out its direction, and a noise in the upper regions of the air announces its immediate approach. In this variable and occasionally tempestuous climate, the value of the barometer is satisfactorily proved. My father once removed his ship from a most dangerous bight in the main ice, where she would probably have been lost, had she remained a few moments longer, in consequence of his having heard the rushing of a storm in the air, while at the mast-head. Before the ship was out of danger, a heavy gale commenced, but the sails being set, and the ship under command, she was extricated from the perilous situation. From this circumstance, he imagined that sudden storms frequently commence at some height in the atmosphere, and gradually descend to the surface. _Intermitting gales_ are almost equally common with sudden storms, and variable winds prevail, in an extraordinary degree, in the frigid zone. The winds, indeed, among ice, are generally unsteady in their direction, and attended with strong gusts or squalls, particularly in very cold weather, and towards the termination of a storm. This variableness, being the effect of the unequal temperature of the ice and water, is curious, but the phenomenon that is most calculated to excite surprise is, that several distinct, and even opposite winds, with the force, in many instances, of a fresh gale, will occasionally prevail at the same moment of time, within the range of the horizon. The situation in which this circumstance occurs, would appear to be the point where conflicting winds contend for the superiority; and as, in some instances, their forces are effectually balanced, the winds, which simultaneously blow from the southward and northward, or from the eastward and westward, have their energies almost destroyed at the place of combination. Thus it sometimes happens that ships, within sight of each other, will, at the same period of time, experience every variety of weather, from calm to storm, from fair weather to thickest snow, together with several distinct and contrary currents of wind.