198 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



posed of workingmen. How many of these, who formerly dissipated 

 their leisure time at drinking-houses now find an ennobling recreation 

 in these associations, where the spirit of union and fraternity is engen- 

 dered and developed. And if we could get at the statistics of crime, 

 who can doubt that they would show it had di; mulshed in proportion 

 to the increase of these societies? In fict, nu-u are better, the heart 

 is in some sort purified when impregnated with the noble harmonies 

 of a fine chorus ; and it is difficult not to treat as a brother one whose 

 voice has mingled with your own and whose heart has been united to 

 yours in a community of pure and joyful emotions. If Orpheon so- 

 cieties ever become established in America, be assured that bar-rooms, 

 the plague ofthe country, will cease, with revolvers and bowie-knives, 

 to be popular institutions. 



THE GREAT INDIAN CYCLONE OF 1864. 



On the night of the 1st of November, 1864, a cyclone or hurricane 

 swept over the Bay of Bengal and the adjacent coasts, which, as regards 

 power and destructive effect, was probably the most remarkable and 

 terrific phenomenon of the kind, which history has ever recorded. 

 Sixty thousand persons, according to the official government reports, 

 were destroyed by the immediate action on this storm, while an 

 equal or greater number have probably died through its later and 

 indirect influence. 



"Sixty thousand persons," says the London Times, "was the number 

 estimated to have been killed by the earthquake at Lisbon, on the same 

 day of the month, a century ago. Nor was the proportionate destruc- 

 tion less than it was then. In the island of Saugor, out of 8,200 

 persons, but 1,200 have been left. The remaining 7,000 passed, in 

 less than an hour, out of existence. All along the eastern coast of 

 the Indian Peninsula went wind and storm, fulfilling His word. It 

 was the time of spring tides, and under the influence of the hurri- 

 cane the sea rose to an unexampled night. Up the course of the 

 Ganges the wave rushed, overwhelming the villages on the banks, and 

 leaving the few who survived the flood to perish for want of food ; 

 their grain rotted and their crops were destroyed by the salt water, 

 and they had no resource but to die. But the scene of the greatest 

 disaster appears to have been Masulipatam, about half-way down the 

 coast. The town lies a little to the north of one of the mouths of the 

 Kistna, on the plain Avhich stretches from the Kistna to the Godavery. 

 The mud which has for ages been washed down these rivers, has 

 formed a district little above the level of the sea. In the wet season 

 it is overflowed by the freshets of the Kistna, and it requires at all 

 times to be protected from the ocean by sea-walls and dikes. The 

 Dutch, who first settled at Masulipatam, probably saw in its situation 

 something which reminded them of Holland, and congratulated them- 

 selves that the single good anchorage on the cofist was close to such 

 a flat and fruitful plain. But the qualities which appeared to them 

 advantages, made Masulipatam an easy prey to the storm. The 

 Cyclone, rushing across the Bay of Bengal, fell upon the spot which 

 was least prepared to meet it. The center of the hurricane passed 

 within a mile of the devoted town at 10 P. M., on the 1st of Novem- 

 ber, in a night of utter darkness. Amid the storm of wind a tidal 



