prevalent Disorders, $c 9 with Volcanic Emanations. 17 



A recent writer* on winds has laid down some general 

 positions respecting them which may serve to exemplify what 

 is here asserted. He says that the storms off the American 

 coast, south of 30° n., drift to »., till they reach 30 u , and 

 then go to the n. and e., increasing their velocity from twelve 

 to thirty miles per hour; that light storms travel faster than 

 heavy ones, and that their strength is not in their direction ; 

 that, in storms going to the westward, the wind is from N. e. 

 to N., and that the latter part of the gale blows from a 

 southern point. Hurricanes, he observes, are proved to move 

 in a horizontal circuit around a vertical inclined axis, which 

 is carried onwards, the diameter being commensurate with 

 the width of the track affected, the course being from right 

 to left (p. 117.)> the circuit being first with the sun's, and 

 then in an opposite direction. As a proof of this, he quotes 

 the hurricane at Barbadoes, on August 10, 11. 1831: the 

 trees in the north of the island lay from n.n.w. to s.s.e. ; 

 in other parts, they lay from s. to n. St. Croix and Porto 

 Rico had not the storm at first; but it was afterwards felt 

 there, f There is a heavy swell on each side of the track of 

 a hurricane; and, in the one under notice, a tremendous 

 swell was thrown upon the north side of Jamaica. f 



Mr. Redfield supposes that the course of the trade winds 

 is a wide circuit, like that of the hurricane; and that, in the 

 southern hemisphere, the storms are in a counter direction to 

 those north of the equator. In another paper §, the same 

 intelligent observer states, that, in the West Indies, hur- 

 ricanes commence from the northern quarter ; and, on the 

 American coast, from the eastern ; and that rotation, caused 

 by unequally opposing forces, produces hurricanes ; a fact 

 exemplified by fires in a circle, which will cause a whirlwind 

 with electrical explosions ; that eddies accompany great storms ; 

 and that it is owing to the circular form of winds, that the 

 air is sometimes colder or warmer than the direction of the 



* Observations on the Hurricanes and Storms of the West Indies and 

 the Coast of the United States ; by W. C. Redfield. (American Journal 

 of Science and Arts y vol. xxv. part 1. p. 1 14.) 



f Capt. Langford, whose paper on hurricanes was published in P. T.,1698, 

 has some remarks of precisely similar nature to Mr. Redfield's ; and says, 

 in his time, " the hurricane was never known to go farther westward than 

 Porto Rico." Moreover, " I could never call any of the former storms at 

 Barbadoes hurricanes, till that last year, in ] 675." Has there been any 

 change, then, since then ? 



£ Mr. De la Beche says, also, the swell was so great on the coast of 

 Cuba as to throw every vessel ashore at St. Jago de Cuba. (Geol. Man , 

 p. 137.) 



§ Summary Statement of some of the leading Facts in Meteorology ; by 

 W. C. Redfield. (Amer. Journ., xxv. p. 122.) 



Vot. VIII.— No. 45. c 



