quarter FROM which the wind blew, while others employed them to signify
the quarter TOWARDS which the atmospheric currents were moving. In some
instances, the observers were no longer within the reach of inquiry, and
of course their tables of the wind were of no value. "Winds," says Mrs.
Somerville, "are named from the points whence they blow, currents
exactly the reverse. An easterly wind comes from the east; whereas on
easterly current comes from the west, and flows towards the
east."--Physical Geography, p. 229.

There is no philological ground for this distinction, and it probably
originated in a confusion of the terminations -WARDLY and -ERLY, both of
which are modern. The root of the former ending implies the direction TO
or TO-WARDS which motion is supposed. It corresponds to, and is probably
allied with, the Latin VERSUS. The termination -ERLY is a corruption or
softening of -ERNLY, easterly for easternly, and many authors of the
nineteenth century so write it. In Haklnyt (i., p. 2), EASTERLY is
applied to place, "EASTERLY bounds," and means EASTERN. In a passage in
Drayton, "EASTERLY winds" must mean winds FROM the east; but the same
author, in speaking of nations, uses NORTHERLY for NORTHERN. Lakewell
says: "The sonne cannot goe more SOUTHERNLY from us, nor come more
NORTHERNLY towards us." Holland, in his translation of Pliny, referring
to the moon, has: "When shee is NORTHERLY," and "shee is gone
SOUTHERLY." Richardson, to whom I am indebted for the above citations,
quotes a passage from Dampier where WESTERLY is applied to the wind, but
the context does not determine the direction. The only example of the
termination -WARDLY given by this lexicographer is from Donne, where it
means TOWARDS the west.

Shakespeare, in Hamlet(v., ii.), uses NORTHERLY wind for wind FROM the
north. Milton does not employ either of these terminations, nor were