Page:Handbook of Meteorology.djvu/165

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A winter barogram; record of the Meteorological Laboratory at Mount Vernon, N. Y.

ground is bare, the high pressure invades the nooks and crannies where foul air and putrefaction lurk, and drives them out. The cold wave with its stinging wind is the greatest scavenger in existence.

West Indian Hurricanes.—The West Indian hurricanes do not differ materially from other cyclonic storms in general principles, and they differ from the typhoons of the China Sea in name and place only. They are cyclonic storms of very great violence and, with the exception of tornadoes, they are the most destructive storms that reach any part of the United States. The wave that covered Galveston, the floods that many times have swept the Sunderbunds of India, and the storm that caused Isle Dernier to melt away were hurricanes of the cyclonic type—whirling up draughts toward which the surface wind blew from every direction.