Heavy snow storms sometimes pass at the south when there are none at the north, and a corresponding state of the weather follows. If a large body of snow fall at the north, the winter is cold, regular, and "old fashioned;" if little snow falls at the north and more at the south, the winter at the north is open and broken. I have known the ice make several inches thick at Baltimore and Washington, when none could be obtained for the ice-houses on the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound. In short, although heat and cold are mainly dependent upon the altitude of the sun, aided by the other arrangements we have alluded to, yet the counter-trade, and the reciprocal action which takes place between it and the earth, are most powerful agents, mitigating the rigors of winter, bringing about the changes from cold to warm weather which the sun is too far south to produce. And on the other hand, by this reciprocal action, producing the electrical phenomena, the gusts, the tornadoes, the hail storms, and the cool seasons of summer, and the period of intense cold in winter. _All our surface-winds, except the light, peculiar W. S. W. wind which is felt where the counter-trade is in contact with the earth, and which is a part of it, and perhaps the genuine N. W. wind which is very peculiar, are incidents of the trade, and are due to its conditions and attractions._ We have already said this was true of the easterly wind and scud of a storm--it is alike true of all. The storm winds east of the Alleghanies are usually, though not always, from the eastward. They are sometimes from the southward, as they doubtless are still more frequently in the interior of the continent. There is occasionally a southerly afternoon wind, followed by short rains in spring and fall, or a succession of showers in summer, which is rather a precedent wind than a storm wind; blowing toward and under an advance portion of the storm at the north, and hauling to the eastward when the rain sets in, or to the westward when the showers reach us.