The chief difference between our weather and that of Scotland is, perhaps, the greater prevalence of high winds in Orkney. The land being low, our islands are swept by the full force of the gales so common in the North Atlantic. When speaking of winds, it may be useful to remember the classification which is recognized by the Meteorological Office. A wind moving at the rate of thirteen miles an hour is called a light breeze; forty miles represents the velocity of a moderate gale, and fifty-six miles a strong gale; seventy-five miles an hour is the speed of a storm, and ninety miles that of a hurricane. We have the record of only one hurricane, on November 17, 1893, with a velocity of ninety-six miles. Several gales of over eighty miles have been experienced, and one summer gale of seventy-five miles in the year 1890. During the fifteen years 1890 to 1904 three hundred gales were recorded in Orkney, while Alnwick experienced only one hundred and fifty-seven, and Valencia, on the west coast of Ireland, one hundred and thirty for the same period. Fleetwood, on the coast of Lancashire, however, had a record of three hundred and six gales during those years. Every Orcadian must have noticed a type of weather which is common all the year round, but especially so in winter. On a blue sky wisps of cirrus or “mare’s-tail” cloud appear in patches. Gradually these increase till they form a continuous haze, in which a lunar halo or “broch,” and occasionally solar halos or “sun-dogs,” may be seen. Then the wind, which was light and probably westerly, backs to the southward and eastward, and the sky becomes threatening. The wind increases, perhaps to a moderate gale, and rain falls heavily. The wind then shifts towards the south and south-west, increasing in force, sometimes quite suddenly, or it may change still further round towards the north. Meantime the barometer, which has been low and falling, begins to rise briskly, and the weather clears. To understand how this common series of weather changes comes about, a little knowledge of cyclones is necessary. A cyclone is a movement in the air resembling a whirlwind; the cyclones of the Indian Ocean and the China seas, indeed, are real whirlwinds of the most violent and destructive type. In the North Atlantic they exist for the most part as enormous eddies in the great air-ocean, often several hundreds of miles in diameter, probably rotating with the force of a gale near the centre, and at the same time moving forward as a whole at a moderate speed. A cyclone has been known to keep company with one of our Atlantic liners during its whole voyage, but the rate of progress is often less than this.