382 Mr Lawson on the Trade-Winds of Barbadoes 



by a remarkable display of meteors, immediately after which 

 the hurricane again burst from the western point with violence 

 prodigious beyond description. Here, again, the stratum of air 

 lying between the NW. and SW. currents, which had been 

 subject to gusts from SW. to AYNW., had no sooner passed 

 to the westward than the south-westerly current suddenly 

 impinged on the ground with the utmost violence. 



79, After 5 A.M. the wind began to abate in force, and the 

 excess of atmospheric pressure around the storm which had 

 previously been counterbalanced by the violence of the SW. 

 current, now began to act by causing the air to flow in from 

 the south and east (64), so that at 6 A.M. the wind was south, 

 at 7 A.M. south-east, at 8 a.m. east-south-east, and at 9 clear 

 weather. 



80. This storm was experienced at St Lucia, St Vincent, 

 and in the neighbourhood of Grenada. The northern ex- 

 tremity of the first island is about 94 geographical miles 

 NW. by W. of the centre of Barbadoes, the east coast of 

 St Vincent about 86 miles W. of Bardadoes, and the north 

 point of Grenada is nearly SW. by W. of Barbadoes 130 

 miles. Now, supposing the hurricane to have been strictly 

 rotatory, and its centre to have passed a little to the north of 

 Barbadoes, its course being, according to Bedfield's chart 

 (No. 3 in Reid's work), WNW., it should have commenced, 

 first at St Lucia, then at St Vincent, and afterwards at 

 Grenada, the direction of the wind at each being a tangent 

 to the circle of rotation. But it first commenced near 

 Grenada, where the army Schooner, Duke of York, began to 

 experience heavy squalls from the north-west about midnight^ 

 fully an hour before the wind at Barbadoes backed from NE. 

 to NW., and while there was nothing in the state of the 

 weather at St Lucia or St Vincent, to excite attention. 

 Towards the north of St Lucia it began to blow hard at 4 A.M. 

 on the 11th, from the north^\ and at St Vincent the hurri- 

 cane commenced at 7 A.M. from the north-westward.\ These 

 facts, which are utterly inexplicable on the principles of 

 simple rotation, are readily and naturally accounted for by 



* Reid, p. 33. t Ibid. p. 32. \ Ibid. p. 27 and 33. 



