Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/416

 STORMONT STORMS ing in the autumn to Africa by night and in large flocks; the only noise they make is by clapping the mandibles together like a pair of castanets ; they rest sleeping on one leg, with the neck folded and head turned backward on the shoulder. The food consists of reptiles, fish, young birds, and insects. The nest is large, coarsely made of sticks and twigs, placed on housetops (often in the midst of crowded cities), and is repaired by the males year after year ; the eggs are three or four, white tinged with buff, 2 by 2 in.; both sexes incubate, and the young are hatched in about a month ; the nestlings are tenderly cared for, and are fed by food regurgitated from the parents' stom- achs. The flight is very high, and the gait slow, with long and measured steps; the dis- position is gentle, the manner familiar, and the docility considerable; they do not propagate in captivity. The stork was considered by the ancients as the personification of piety, con- jugal and filial love, gratitude, and temper- ance ; it was supposed to bear a charmed life, and it was a crime to offer it violence; in some places it was even an object of worship, and in hieroglyphie language it is the symbol of piety and beneficence ; " pious " or " benefi- cent " is also the meaning of its name in He- brew ('hasidafi). The black stork (0. nigra, Bechst.) is about 2f ft. long, with a bill of 5 in. ; the color above is black with green and purplish gloss, and white below. It avoids the vicinity of man, nests in trees, and feeds like the herons chiefly on fish ; it is found in many countries of Europe, especially in the Alps. The American stork (C. Americana, Briss.) is about as large as the white species ; it is found in South America, particularly in Brazil. STORMONT, an E. county of Ontario, Can- ada, bounded S. E. by the St. Lawrence river; area, 409 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 18,987, of whom 6,229 were of Scotch, 4,191 of Irish, 3,125 of Gorman, 2,233 of French, 1,621 of English, and 1,322 of Dutch origin or descent. It is watered by several small streams, and is traversed by the Grand Trunk railway. Capital, Cornwall. STORMS, violent atmospheric disturbances. (See WIND.) Storm areas are in general char- acterized by low barometric pressure at their centres ; winds increasing in force toward the central region, and by their directions show- ing the lower portion of the atmosphere to be moving spirally in, toward and around the centre- heavy masses of low clouds attended by a higher stratum that moves around and out from the centre ; rain or snow falling es- pecially on the advancing side or front of the storm ; temperatures above the average in front, and below the average in the rear of the storm. The storm area with its attending features moves bodily along the earth's sur- face for several days. A map showing the average number of centres of storms that pass over the eastern portions of the United States is published in the " Statistical Atlas " of the census bureau (1875), and is hre reproduced. The number of storm centres passing over any region increases as we go from the low- er latitudes toward Hudson bay, being great- est in the region of the St. Lawrence valley and the great lakes. This arises from the fact that while on the one hand many storms move eastward along the northern limits of our field of observation, on the other hand the storms that originate in the lower lati- tudes tend to move northward. Nine tenths of the storm tracks on which this map is based have moved toward and over New England and Lower Canada. The chart also shows in Nebraska a region of specially numerous storm tracks, from the fact that the storms coming both from Texas and from Dakota frequently move respectively N. E. and S. E. toward this region; and frequently we find here also the first trace of a class of storms that appear to originate on the spot. The peculiarities in the distribution of storms are apparently fully explained by the topography of the continent. When we consider that at any station in the northern hemisphere the winds veer from S. E. to S. W. and N. W. as a storm centre passes N. of it, we perceive from this map that through- out the United States E. of the Rocky moun- tains the veering of the wind will be more fre- quent than its backing, in the proportions indi- cated by the relative number of storm centres that pass to the north and south of the station. For the ocean, it has in general not yet been pos- sible to compile any general map of the aver- age paths of the storms ; but from the logs of vessels a great mass of information relative to the frequency of gales and stormy winds has been compiled, and this information is very nearly related to that given by the accom- panying chart. The first map of this kind was compiled at the United States naval obser- vatory by M. F. Maury ; and the work of col- lecting such data has been actively pursued by the meteorological officers of all nations, es- pecially England and Holland. Within 20 ef the equator storm winds are exceedingly rare, but their number increases rapidly as we ap- proach the latitude of 50 N. or S. During our northern summer the percentage of stormi- ness diminishes in the North Atlantic and in- creases in the South Atlantic ocean. In ei- ther hemisphere, winter is its stormy season. Within the limits of our observations, viz., up to the parallel of 40 on either side of the equa- tor and in mid-ocean, the southern winter is sensibly as stormy as the northern ; but beyond these parallels, and especially near the coast of North and South America, the northern hemisphere is far more stormy than the south- ern ; the probable cause is the greater mass of dry land, and consequently of dry cold air, contiguous to the North Atlantic, as* compared with the little land bordering the South Atlan- tic. Among the regions most frequently passed over by vessels of all nations, the neighbor- hoods of Cape Horn and the cape of Good Hope are next in importance to the great