The Wind Has Scratchy Fingers

A very learned man, Anaximander of Ionia, in 600 B.C., came up with a definition of wind which has not been improved upon appreciably since then. The learned Anaximander defined wind as the "flowing of air." Dear, revered, remembered Anaximander! How grateful we are for your "flowing of air!"Flowing of air: so gentle it may scarcely bend a blade of grass; so destructive and terrible it can uproot trees, carry houses away as leaves in a storm, and cause heartbreak and havoc to all unlucky enough to get in its way. Remember, last summer, Hurricane Donna, an ill-tempered old shrew, and the sad path of her journey through the land!

We know that air is a substance, like water or wood. One cubic centimeter of air, properly contained and properly measured, would weigh 0.012928 grams. The air surrounding our wonderful little planet (this belt of air is called the troposhere) is from seven to eight miles thick and immeasurably heavy if we were to measure it under proper conditions. At sea level, the weight of air above every horizontal square inch of Earth's surface amounts to about fourteen pounds. A drop of two inches in barometric pressure (the weight of the atmosphere) means that a load of two million tons is removed from each square mile of land, where over oceans a ten foot rise of water would be the result of a barometric drop in pressure of two inches.

Make no mistake: air is something we can't ignore or take for granted. We breathe it, we live in an ocean of it, and when it starts moving we recognize its strength and appreciate its might and power.

Moving air is wind, and (courtesy of the U. S. Weather Bureau) we have terms to describe its movements based on the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force. Some examples: Light, 4-7 m.p.h. Wind felt on face, leaves rustle, ordinary vane moved by wind; Moderate, 13-18 m.p.h. Raises dust and loose paper, small branches are moved; Strong, 25-31 m.p.h. = Large branches in motion, whistling heard in telegraph wires, umbrellas used with difficulty; Gale, 47-54 m.p.h. = Slight structural damage occurs (chimney pots and slate removed); and so on. On the card we are studying there is no comment for Hurricane, above 75 m.p.h. We offer one that might be suitable: "Brother, you've had it! Hit for the storm cellars!"

But why does air move? Here we could call in our old friend Anaximander again, consult all his learned followers through the centuries, and present a treatise that would fill volumes. The basic answer, though, would be this: hot air rises, cold air falls. With this rising and falling of air, we have wind.

The wind, among the many things we know and don't know about it, is a mighty sculptor. Few places on Earth bear more eloquent witness to the work of the scratchy fingers of the wind than the high plateau regions of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. A long time ago this area was under the seas. When the seas subsided, the wind went patiently to work on the sandstone mesas and escarpments, creating the fantastic fairyland of wind erosion we know today. Where water and frost erosion is evident, such as in many of our canyons, the wind has come along with superb polishing tools making the picture complete.

When the wind reaches a velocity of twenty-five miles per hour, it lifts a grain of sand and with that formidable tool in its hand goes to work scraping, scratching, sand-blasting, polishing all that stands in its way. When striking a spire or sandstone monument or mesa face, the wind not only is eternally moulding the face of the object in its hand, but by vacuum force has a terrific moulding effect by sheer "pull" power on the back of the object in its path. We can say the wind is at work both going and coming. The wind is never still. Perhaps the very mission of the wind is to level the Earth. That mission may be fulfilled some day because the wind is strong and patient and has all of eternity to work in. What happens with the wind and its scratchings a million years from now is, luckily, not our worry. We can still enjoy those parts of our land where the wind is never still and where dramatic evidence of its sculpturing is so beautiful to behold.