a regular or periodical wind, in the East Indies, blowing constantly in the same direction during six months of the year, and contrariwise during the remaining six.

In the Indian Ocean, the winds are partly general, blowing all the year round the same way, as in the Ethiopic Ocean; and partly periodical, that is, blowing half the year one way, and the other half year on the opposite points; and those points and times of shifting differ in different parts of this ocean. These latter are what have been called monsoons.

The shifting of these monsoons does not take place all at once. In some places the time of the change is attended with calms, but in others with variable winds; and those of China, when they cease to be westerly, are liable to become tempestuous; indeed such is their violence, that they seem to be of the nature of the West India hurricanes, and render the navigation of those seas very unsafe at the time of the year when they prevail. These tempests the seamen call the breaking up of the monsoons.

Monsoons, then, are a species of what we otherwise term trade winds. They take the denomination of monsoon from an ancient pilot, who first crossed the Indian Sea by means of them; though others derive the name from a Portuguese word signifying motion or change of wind and sea.