34 HIS TORT of the SOCIETY 



time, due W. and was more or lefs from all the intermediate 

 points. In places but a few miles diftant, people difagreed in 

 their accounts of its violence and direction at the fame point of 

 time. It was very irregular in thefe refpecls at other places ; 

 for on the ifland of St Lucia they had it not at any time from 

 the weft j but the Montague and Ajax, the {hips that were 

 driven from that ifland, had it from all points. 



THE progrefs of it weftward was very flow, confidering the 

 violence of the wind. This, Dr BLANE thinks, was owing to 

 the various directions in which it blew. At St Vincent and St 

 Lucia, which are not above twenty leagues to leeward of Bar- 

 badoes, it was thirteen or fourteen hours later in coming on, 

 and was ,not near fo violent. At St Domingo they had it in a 

 flill lefs degree on the I3th and I4th of Odlober. It has fince 

 appeared, that there was in England the mofl violent ftorm that 

 has been known for many years, the very day of the hurricane 

 at Barbadoes. 



IT was remarked, that the fhips which put before the wind 

 during the hurricane, were not carried with the velocity which 

 might have been expected from the violence of it. A mer- 

 chant-fhip, with the crew on board, was driven from her an- 

 chors at Barbadoes, all the compafles were broken, and, after 

 toiling about for two days and two nights, the people found 

 themfelves at the mouth of Carlifle bay, the very point whence 

 they fet out, at a time when they might reafonably have fup- 

 pofed themfelves 100 leagues from it. 



THERE was much lightning during the hurricane, chiefly in 

 large iheets and fteady blazes, and little of the forked and dart- 

 ing kind. At St Lucia, there was much of what the French 

 called feu de St Elme, which Dr BLANE fuppofes to be the ignis 

 fatuus. 



THERE was in the N. E. an Aurora Borealis, an unufual ap- 

 pearance in the W eft Indies. 



DURING^ 



