STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 403 



miles per day. Piddington says that cyclones are of slow progression, 

 being from two and three fourths to one and one fourth miles per hour on 

 a singularly calm track. In the Mozambique Channel, Boyne, in his 

 cyclone of 1838, lays down ten miles an hour. In the Arabian Seas the 

 rate of progression is placed at from four to sixteen miles an hour. In 

 the Bay of Bengal, Piddington estimates the progress at from a little over 

 two to thirty-nine miles an hour, although from three to fifteen may be 

 taken as the usual rates. The cyclone which traveled at the low rate of 

 but little over two miles an hour (fifty-three miles in twenty-four hours) 

 was the tremendous one which inundated Burisal and Backergunge, at the 

 mouth of the Burrampooter and the Ganges, in which over fifty thousand 

 persons lost their lives, and a vast amount of property in houses, cattle, 

 and other things was lost. 



In the Andaman Sea, the usual rate of a cyclone is four miles an hour. 

 Off the coast of Ceylon they average from five to ten miles an hour, or 

 more. In the China Sea, the rate of progression has been estimated at 

 from seven to twenty-four miles an hour. The cyclone referred to came 

 under the head of " stationary cyclones." and their periodicity and favor- 

 able opportunities of making observations enable the statistician to give 

 approximately accurate data with regard to the peculiarities of the mete- 

 ors. So far, unfortunately, the means of observation in the Pacific have 

 been less favorable, and comparatively speaking but little is known of the 

 habitat of the cyclone. There is no doubt, however, of the frequency of 

 the occurrence between the Samoan group and the Friendly Islands, al- 

 though there is more frequent damage done on the latter than on the former. 

 The track of the hurricane appears to be between the groups. 



CLIMATIC PECULIARITIES. 



The Governments of the United States and Great Britain have gathered 

 and collected all information in any way appertaining to climatic, hygienic, 

 and meteorological phenomena belonging to the Samoan Islands, and from 

 the various reports may be gathered a vast amount of information that will 

 be of interest to the general student. That any light will ever be thrown 

 upon the immediate cause of a cyclone is a matter of extreme doubt. So 

 far, it has been extremely difficult to ascertain the near approach of a tor- 

 nado, so as to be able to guard against its effects. An English authority, 

 speaking of the climate of Samoa, says: 



" The climate of the islands may be termed variable, and there is much 

 bad weather, particularly during the winter months, when long and heavy 

 rains, attended at times with high winds and northerly gales, are frequent. 

 Destructive hurricanes also occur, sometimes blowing down the towns 

 and destroying the houses. Although these severe hurricanes do not hap- 

 pen very frequently at the Samoan Islands, yet it is probable that they 

 occur very frequently between them and the Friendly Islands, where 

 scarcely a season passes without some of the islands suffering from one of 

 these awful catastrophes." 



HURRICANES IN THE PACIFIC. 



The same authority speaks of the hurricanes of the Pacific in the follow- 

 ing language: 



" In the Pacific, like many other of the phenomena there met with, the 

 recorded observations on hurricanes or typhoons are too scanty to have 

 drawn up any regular system for them; so that for the present it remains 



