Simoon

Simoon is a hot wind occurring in the hot sandy regions of Africa and Arabia. The sand, under the scorching rays of the sun, gets extremely hot. It is too bad a conductor to allow the heat to pass downwards, and the absence of water prevents it from becoming latent in atmospheric moisture. Hence the top layers get enormously hot, the temperature sometimes rising to 2000 F., nearly the boiling-point of water. Currents of hot air rise, and more air rushes in to supply their place; the result is that hot columns of air, laden with stifling clouds of sand, are swept across the country, causing immense destruction to animal and vegetabte life. Extensive caravans are often destroyed, and even whole armies have been known to perish before it. Its advent is usually signalled, by the appearance of a rapidly spreading haze, extending from the horizon till the whole sky is obscured by it; then follow hurricanes with their fearful columns of heated sand. The sirocco of Italy, solano of Spain, and samiel of Turkey are merely modifications of the dread simoon. The hot winds of the Sahara get saturated with vapour in their passage across the Mediterranean, and appear as the hot, moist, enervating sirocco of Sicily and Italy.