strata form, as far as I have been able to discover, the _middle current_ of storms which are accompanied with very heavy falls of rain. These double currents are much more common than is supposed. East of the Alleghanies, short and heavy rain storms, which commence north-east, hauling to the south and lighting up about mid-day _after a very rainy forenoon_, frequently have a S. E. or S. S. E. middle current of this character, which involves the whole surface atmosphere when the storm has nearly passed, and the N. E. wind dies away, and the wind seems to haul to the S. S. E. and S.; so that it is rather the prevalence of a _different_ and _coexisting current_, than a hauling of the _same wind_, which marks the period of lighting up in the south. Sometimes the easterly wind will set in and blow a day or two before the border of the storm reaches us. Sometimes the storm is passing, or will pass, in its lateral southern extension, south of us, and the condensation in the trade extends over us sufficiently dense to induce an easterly current beneath it, but not dense enough to drop rain, and then we have a dry north-easter. I can not, within the limits I have prescribed, allude to all the peculiarities attending the induction and attraction of an easterly wind, by the storm in the counter-trade. They are readily noticeable by the attentive and discriminating observer, and their existence and cause is all with which I have to do at present. Winds from the north, or any point from N. N. E. to N. N. W., are comparatively infrequent in the United States, east of the Alleghanies--though it is otherwise in the vicinity of the great lakes. Sometimes the wind "backs," as sailors term it, during a N. E. storm, from the N. E. through the N. N. E., N., and N. N. W. to N. W. When this takes place, it is toward the close of the storm. Occasionally, though very rarely, it continues to storm after the wind has passed the point of N. N. E., and until it gets N. W. I have known a few instances in the course of thirty years, and but a few. They are exceptions--rare exceptions. When the wind thus backs from the N. E. to the N. W. through the N., you may be very certain that the body of the storm, or at least the point of greatest intensity and greatest attraction, is at the time passing to the southward of you. This is most commonly the course of the wind when the storm extends far south and lasts several days, and does not extend north far, or if so, with much intensity, beyond the point of observation. The change of the wind is explained by the situation of the focus of intensity and attraction, to the south of the observer, and its passage by on that side.