The steam engine familiarly explained and illustrated; with an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain maxims for railway speculators. By the Rev. Dionysius Lardner ... With additions and notes by James Renwick ...

STEAM:NAVIGATION. 275
St. John's, Newfoundland, the distance of which from Valentia is 1900 miles; the distance from St. John's to New
York is about 1200 miles, Halifax (Nova Scotia) being a
convenient intermediate station. The distance from Valentia to St. John's comes very near the point which we have
already assigned as the probable present limit of steam navigation. The Atlantic Ocean also offers a formidable opponent in the westerly winds which almost constantly prevail
in it. These winds are, in fact, the reaction of the trades,
which blow near the equator in a contrary direction, and are
produced by those portions of the equatorial atmosphere
which, rushing down the northern latitudes, carry with them
the velocity from west to east proper to the equator. Besides this difficulty, St. John's and Halifax are both inaccessible, by reason of the climate, during certain months of the
year. Should these causes prevent this project from being
realized, another course may be adopted. We may proceed
from the southern point of Ireland or England to the Azores,
a distance of about 1800 miles from the Azores to New
York would be a distance of about 2000 miles, or from the
Azores to St. John's would be 1600 miles.*
(k) While the inhabitants of Great Britain are discussing
the project of the communication with New York, by means
A* treatise on the steam engine is not the place to enter into discussion on
the causes of the several constant, periodic, and prevailing winds, otherwise we
should feel it our duty to correct the opinion adopted by Dr. Lardner from the
older authorities, in relation to the course of the westerly winds. These winds
are, in the South Atlantic, and in both South and North Pacific, constant
winds. In the North Atlantic, between the latitudes of 350 and 450, and,
therefore, in the track of the vessels which navigate between the United States
and Great Britain, they are the most frequent prevailing winds, except in the
months of April and October. They are certainly not the reaction of the trade
winds, which is in a well-known zone, to the south of the region in which these
westerly winds prevail, under the name of the Horse latitudes of our navigations, and the Grassy sea of the Spaniards. Those who wish to study the true
theory of these winds will find it in Daniell's learned and ingenious work, " On
Atmospheric Phenomena," or in the analysis of that work in the Amenrican
Quarterly Review.