midnight, in spite of the most energetic exertions, the dismasted frigate, without helm, without sails, lay on her broadside, with her rigging in tatters and her deck swept by a furious sea. It was not until two hours later that we reached the centre of the cyclone. A sudden calm succeeded the first crisis of this atmospheric convulsion, but it was of brief duration. The winds which had abandoned us in the south reappeared in the west and north with the rapidity of lightning. We entered the second segment of the circle of the storm. Caught this time on the left, our ship keeled over anew, unable to resist the enormous pressure directed against her side."

"Their ordinary form," says the author of La Mer, " is that of a funnel. A seaman overtaken by one said to me, 'I saw myself, as it were, at the bottom of a crater of an enormous volcano, around me nothing but darkness; above, an aperture and a gleam of light.' Once involved in it there is no hope of drawing back; it holds you in its grasp. Savage roarings, plaintive howlings, rattling and shrieks of the drowning, the groans of the unfortunate vessel which having sprung to life again as in her own forest, bewails her approaching end; and all this appalling tumult does not prevent you from hearing the shrill hissing of serpents in the shrouds and rigging. Suddenly, silence! The nucleus of the wind-spout then passes afar in a burst of horrible thunder, which deafens and almost blinds you. You recover yourself. It has rent and split the masts, and not a sound was heard!"

The climate of the Japan islands is influenced by their proximity to the continent of Asia, the changes being less slow and more pronounced than in more distant isles. The temperature on the continent becomes very cold in winter, and this affects the air of the islands, being below freezing everywhere throughout the country, except in the vicinity of Okunawa. Snow at times clothes in white the entire group, though in the southern part it remains but a short time. In summer the great continent, being raised to a high temperature, the islands are affected accordingly, though not in such a marked degree as in winter. The winds are likewise governed by the heating and cooling of the continent, being toward the mainland in summer and away from it in winter. As the continent cools in autumn the continental atmosphere be

comes denser, and the pressure increases until strong winds. from the south-southwest prevail. On the other hand, when the air of the continent becomes heated by the suns of spring and summer, it becomes rarer and lighter, with southeast currents. So that with southeast winds in summer, and northwest winds in winter, the mountain systems meanwhile running southwest and northeast and dividing the islands into two sides, front and back, the amount of precipitation differs on the two sides, as well as during the two sea

sons.

Japan has some four or five hundred temperature and raingauge stations, all provided with mercurial barometer, wet and dry bulb thermometers, maximum thermometer, minimum thermometer, windvane, anemometer, rain-gauge, and atometer. At some of the stations observations are taken hourly. The islands are so mountainous, the one level tract being the plain of Kwanto, that temperature varies with the altitude, from far below freezing to over 120°. Autumn is warmer than spring. There is less variation in the velocity of the wind at night than by day, when it begins to increase at sunrise, and reaches the maximum at four o'clock. The strongest winds come in December and January; the least wind is from August to October. Some of the most violent gales of the year are in summer, when the mean velocity is at the minimum.

The humidity of the atmosphere is governed by temperature, being relatively great in summer and small in winter, with the maximum in August and the minimum in December. And as the variations of temperature are influenced by locality, it is so with regard to humidity. On the back Nippon, for instance, the minimum humidity is between April and May, and the maximum in July; on the front Nippon the maximum is in July and the minimum in February. As the country sits in the sea, the relative humidity is high everywhere, though highest at Hokkaido, the mean of the year being 85, and not lower than 79 in the driest month. In July it reaches 91, owing to the cold current from Kamchatka, which strikes the warm air of the islands and produces dense fogs. As to the sky, during the day the clouds hang heaviest over the land, and at night over the sea. On the back Nippon the amount of cloud is great in winter and small in summer;

on the front Nippon it is the reverse. The mean annual sunshine is in duration about two-fifths of the day, but the variations are different on the two sides of the islands. So with precipitation; the rainfall is greater on the back Nippon, which drains into the Japan sea, in autumn and winter than in spring and summer, while on the front Nippon, which faces the Pacific, the reverse is the case.

CHAPTER XIX

MINES AND MANUFACTURES

It is worthy of remark that all the countries round the Pacific are essentially metalliferous, abounding in silver and gold, while, however much of iron and coal the Atlantic seaboards may contain, there were never present, with some few exceptions like the isthmuses which connect the two Americas, and which belong to the Pacific as much as to the Atlantic, any large deposits of the precious metals. On the shores of the Mediterranean, and in India and China gold was found sufficient for the requirements of the ancients, but the vast deposits of Australia and America were held secret until the world broadened, and commerce required more currency.

Great as was the effect upon the mind of man, in the work of illumination and enlightenment, of the discovery and exploration of the Pacific ocean, the effect of the precious metals found at various times and in various ways along its shores on the world's finance, commerce, and manufactures was none the less marked. The early gold-gatherings which were sent to Spain were felt in the factories of England and Flanders; the gold of California vitalized the industries of the United States and saved the credit of the nation during the civil war; the gold of Australia gave the impetus to England's colonization and spread of empire that make her now the mistress of the world.

The gold of the Pacific; how tell the story! Marco Polo and Mandeville went to China many centuries ago, and when they returned hiding in ragged raiment stores of precious stones, they told of the great khan and far Cathay, how there were cities whose temples were roofed with gold, so resplendent that when the sun shone the eyes could not rest on them. And the streets were paved with silver, and the very portals of the palaces studded with gems. Toward the north was opulent Zipangu, whose wealth no man could tell.

Cross now to the other side and see where Columbus came in search of these great riches, telling Christ if he would give them him, they should rescue his holy sepulchre from the infidel Turks. The Genoese would find a short way to this Far East, to this Cathay and Zipangu on the other side of India; but the long drawn continent of the Americas obstructed him, and though he sought diligently for a passage through or round this land, he found it not; so he picked up a little gold and went home and died.

A rollicking adventurer from Spain, Balboa by name, finding himself one day bankrupt on the streets of Santo Domingo, to escape his angry creditors and get to sea, had himself headed up in an empty cask and rolled on board a vessel bound for Darien. Assuming in due time the leadership of a colony established there, and hearing of a sea toward the south, where were gold and pearls, with a small party he adventured thither, found the great South sea, found the gold and pearls, and finally found death, the death of a traitor, but falsely accused by a jealous governor, whose deeds were sanctioned by a sovereign all too ready to cancel the services of his discoverers by killing them.

It was in the bay of Panamá, in the year 1513, when the valiant Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, helmeted and cased in steel, with drawn sword waded far out into the water and took possession of that great sea for the king of Spain. He called upon the waves to hear him, and upon the winds to witness the solemn act, that he then and there took possession of all those waters, of the shores they washed and the islands they encompassed, of the treasures they contained, gold and gems and pearls, fishes and birds, and the people that inhabited their lands, all this for his sovereign lord the king, whose right he would maintain against all comers. Far to the south that voice was heard, and to the north, and across to Asia; the porpoises and sea-gulls heard it, and the cormorants of the cavalier's own country; for soon came Spain demanding from the nations allegiance and service, acknowledgment of ownership by reason of the pope's promise and the antics of the adventurer whom his king had so quickly beheaded out of the way. And in the train of this Spanish claim to domination came ravening wolves, one wolf going hence to the north and one wolf to the south. The wolf who went to the north was called Cortés, and he to the south Pizarro.