the state of rest which exists in the air and sea when there is no wind stirring. Calms are never so great on the ocean as on the Mediterranean, because the flux and reflux of the former keep the water in a continual agitation, even where there is no wind; whereas, there being no tides in the latter, the calm is sometimes so dead that the face of the water is as clear as a looking-glass; but such calms are almost constant presages of an approaching storm. On the coasts about Smyrna—a long calm is reputed a prognostic of an earthquake.

Calm Latitudes, in sea language, are situated in the Atlantic Ocean, between the tropic of Cancer and the latitude of 29° north; or they denote the space that lies between the trade and variable winds, because it is frequently subject to calms of long duration.