i 9 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



surprised in their sleep. While this wave was ascending the Hooghly, 

 and spreading over the neighboring districts, a portion of the same 

 wave seems to have struck the coast near Chittagong, and, having 

 swept along the same, to have overflowed the islands of Shahabazpore 

 and Hattia from the rear. And this is the cause of the fearful devas- 

 tation it wrought, for we shall not err if we suppose waves coming 

 from two opposite directions to have met at these islands The num- 

 ber of human victims in the catastrophe of 1864 was nearly doubled 

 in consequence of the diseases produced by the multitude of unburied 

 dead bodies, and which carried off 30,000 souls. Hardly four weeks 

 after the Hooghly catastrophe of 1864, namely, on November 5th, the 

 coast at Masulipatam, on the Kistnah a locality specially adapted for 

 concentrating the force of the storm-wave and intensifying its pow- 

 ers of destruction was overflowed and 35,000 lives were lost. Three 

 years later, on November 1, 1867, the Calcutta district was again vis- 

 ited ; but, fortunately, on this occasion only 1,000 lives were lost, 

 though 30,000 huts of the natives were swept away. But of all the 

 disasters of this kind which have occurred prior to 1876, that of June 

 6, 1822, was the most appalling and destructive, and the only one to 

 be compared with that of last October. As is shown by Beveridge 

 in his recently -published work on Bacarganch, the cyclone had a 

 very wide track, extending far inland on the east, and beyond Cal- 

 cutta to the west. The wave which overflowed the mouths of the 

 Ganges and the adjoining coasts fortunately appeared early in the 

 evening, and the people were somewhat prepared for it ; neverthe- 

 less, 100,000 human beings lost their lives, and an equal number 

 of cattle, and the damage otherwise exceeded 1,000,000 rupees. 



Concerning the latest deplorable catastrophe, we possess the fol- 

 lowing data: Down to 11 p. m. there was no sign of impending 

 danger; before midnight the storm burst suddenly, and without 

 warning, surprising the people in their beds and dwellings. Three 

 storm-waves swept over an area of 3,000 square miles, containing a 

 population of 1,000,000 souls. In a few minutes, 215,000 human 

 beings were swept off by the waters, and there perished. This esti- 

 mate, however, is probably far too low; for nearly all the officials 

 from whom authentic information might have been obtained them- 

 selves perished in the flood, and many villages are known to have 

 lost seventy per cent, of their inhabitants. This is undoubtedly the 

 gravest calamity ever caused by water. Three great islands, and in- 

 numerable small ones, were entirely swept by the flood, as also the 

 mainland, over an area of five or six miles in length by about four 

 miles in width. These islands all lie near the mouth of the Meghna, 

 a river formed by the union of the Ganges with the Brahmapootra. 

 The largest of the islands Dakhin Shahabazpore is 800 miles in 

 circumference, and had 240,000 inhabitants, while the other two 

 great islands Hattia and Sundney had in all about 100,000 inhabi- 



