only to rig your sails and smoke your pipe, or go to sleep; you may,
in that way, run four thousand leagues in three months."

"Stiff sailing that, Willis."

"Yes, Master Ernest, but it does not come up to your yarn about the
stars, you recollect, ever so many millions of miles in a second!"

"The trade winds, I was going to observe," continued Becker, "that
blow from the west coast of Africa, carry with them a stifling heat."

"That might be expected," remarked Frank, "since they pass over the
hot sands of the desert."

"Well, can you tell me why the same wind is cooler on the east coast
of America?"

"Because it has been refreshed on crossing the ocean that separates
the two continents?"

"By taking a glass of grog on the way," suggested Willis.

"Yes; and so in Europe the north wind is cold because it carries, or
rather consists of, air from the polar regions; and the same effect is
produced by the south wind in the other hemisphere."

"It is for a like reason," suggested Ernest, "that the south wind in
Europe, and particularly the south-west wind, is humid, and generally
brings rain, because it is charged with vapor from the Atlantic
Ocean."