nothing else than the passing of a belt of calms which separates the monsoons from each other, and which, as we know, goes annually with the sun from the south to the north, and back over the torrid zone to and fro.
711. Where they are, there the changing of the monsoons is going on.—" So also the calms, which precede the land and sea winds, are turned back. If, at the coming of the land-wind in the hills, we go with it to the coast—to the sea, we shall perceive that it shoves away the calms which preceded it from the hills to the coast, and so far upon the sea as the land-wind extends. Here, upon the limits of the permanent monsoon, the place for the calms remains for the night, to be turned back to the land and to the hills the following day by the sea-wind. In every place where these calms go, the land and sea-winds turn back. If various observers, placed between the hills and the sea, and between the coast and the farthest limit of the land-wind, noted the moment when they perceived the calms, and that when they perceived the land-wind, then by this means they would learn how broad the belt of calms has been, and with what rapidity they are pushed over the sea and over the land. And even though the results one day should be found not to agree very well with those of another, they would at least obtain an average thereof which would be of value. So, on a larger scale, the belt of calms which separates the monsoons from each other presses in the spring from the south to the north, and in the fall from the north to the south, and changes the monsoons in every place where it presses."[1]
- ↑ Bijdrage Natuurkündige Beschrijving der zeën, vertaald door M. H. Jansen, Luitenant ter zee.
