CONTENTS. - An Introductory Chapter.-How this Inquiry originated. Barbadoes Hurricane, September 3, 1835.—Another at Antigua, August 12th, 1835.-Hurricanes not caused On the Hurricanes of 1837.-Five Storms traced in close succession.-Barbadoes Hurricane of the 26th of July. -The Antigua Hurricane of the 2nd of August.-Hur- ricane of the middle of August. - The Castries's Storm. --Storm of Apolachicola and St. Mark's.-The On Storms in the Southern Hemisphere.-They revolve in the contrary manner to North Latitude.—Ships may overtake Storms.-Swell at the Cape of Good Hope. That there are Hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean.-Mauritius Hurricanes of 1818, 1819, 1824, 1834, and 1836.-Two Storms, which were very dis- astrous to East India Fleets under Convoy of the Albion and Culloden, in 1808 and 1809.—Mauritius On Typhoons in the China Sea, and on the Hurricanes of India. Capper's Whirlwinds.-The Bay of Bengal The Hurricanes of 1780.-That which destroyed Savanna- On Storms in High Latitudes.-Captain King's Sailing Directions for Terra del Fuego.-The cause of the Barometer falling with a Northerly Wind, and rising with a Southerly in the Southern Hemisphere, ex- plained. Easterly Storms in Ireland and Westerly of the Coasts of Portugal, in the middle of Feb., 1838. On Measuring the Wind's Force; and on adapting Build- ON HURRICANES AND STORMS. CHAP. I. An Introductory Chapter. I. HAVING engaged to explain what I had learned CHAP. regarding Tropical Hurricanes, in an article inserted in the 2nd volume of Professional Papers,' printed by the Corps of Royal Engineers, I have become much interested with the subject; and believing it to be one of importance, am induced to attempt to direct public attention towards further investigation into the action of Nature in great storms. The professional work above alluded to is approved and sanctioned by the Master-General of the Ordnance; and designed, as a means, for collecting the scattered information obtained by the officers of engineers in their various occupations, whilst serving in different parts of the world. My attention was first directed to the subject from my having been employed at Barbadoes in re-establishing the government buildings blown down in the hurricane of 1831; when from the violence of the wind 1477 persons lost their lives in the short space of seven B I. CHAP. hours. I was induced to search every where for accounts of previous storms, in the hope of learning something of their causes and mode of action. West Indian histories, however, contain little beyond a record of the losses in lives and property, and the sufferings of the inhabitants during the period of these tempests. The first paper I met with, which appeared to convey any just opinion on the nature of hurricanes, was one published in the American Journal of Science,' by Mr. W. C. Redfield of New York. The late Colonel James Capper of the East India Company's Service, who published a work of the winds and monsoons in 1801, mentions some of the hurricanes which happened on the Coromandel Coast of India; but he merely reprints very brief statements of their fatal effects from 'Orme's History of Hindostan.' The following passage is to be found in Colonel Capper's work: "It would not, perhaps, be a matter of great difficulty to ascertain the situation of a ship in a whirlwind, by observing the strength and changes of the wind. If the changes are sudden, and the wind violent, in all probability the ship must be near the centre of the vortex of the whirlwind; whereas if the wind blows a great length of time from the same point, and the changes are gradual, it may be reasonably supposed the ship is near the extremity of it." Mr. Redfield, living amidst the records of storms and shipwrecks, had actually done what Colonel Capper was satisfied with merely suggesting, and had come to the same conclusion, perhaps without being at all aware of what Colonel Capper had written; and he has also shown that they are progressive. |