A scientific analysis of the cause of this perpetual Easterly Wind may be acceptable to the general reader,--it is also required by the subject matter of this volume,--for the Tyrians had no knowledge of the cause, they but experienced the effects,--and this upon two occasions,--once in opposing its power, and at another time in receiving its friendly aid. Columbus received the same during his voyage, which was accomplished entirely by this East-Wind,--it not only wafted him with continuous speed and safety, but it also subdued the fierce elements of human conflict, as threatened by the mutiny of his crew. Upon the success, he and his companions regarded the perpetual wind blowing towards the Western Continent as a Providential interposition in their behalf! Such was the superstition only four centuries and a half ago; but Columbus merely followed a track, (and also from the _Canary Isles_) which had been ploughed by Tyrian Galleys, _eighteen centuries before_; and wafted by the same ceaseless wind, he reached an island _in a direct westerly line_, with the land or point of "Florida" first "touched" by his Phœnician predecessors! This we believe, in the subsequent volumes, will be firmly established. But to the analysis of this Orient Gale ever blowing towards the Occident. We will first suppose (for illustration) that the Earth should suddenly cease its diurnal revolution, and become absolutely stationary;--in that case all the currents of air (winds) would rush from every part of the Globe towards that point over which the Sun (at the moment of the Earth's fixedness) should be vertical: and the Sun producing a partial vacuum by its heat, would cause the various currents of wind to leave the Globe, and rise in the form of a cone towards the immediate source of heat, and so rush with more or less fury, according to the degrees of the vacuum produced. Now from this contemplation of the action of air, upon the Earth being stationary, simply view the Globe in its _revolving_ condition according to its eternal law,--our diurnal hemisphere ever turning FROM _West_ TO _East_,--producing the natural fact, that every spot of earth (in the same latitude) holds nearly the same locality in infinite space once in every twenty-four hours! The Sun (for this second illustration) will be viewed as stationary,--and is nearest to the earth at the line farthest and most central from the North and South poles,--_i. e._ at the Equator,--the currents of air as a necessity pass from East _to_ West (the _reverse_ of the Earth's action) following the principles of rushing towards the partial vacuum created by the Sun's intensity. As the Sun is farther from the Poles than from the line of the Equator, so the East-Wind diminishes in ratio force towards the Poles (for the cold airs are attracted from them) and increases in the same degree of ratio in approaching the line from whence the North and South latitudes are measured. The distance, as already stated, is thirty