418 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Now, the records of the Hydrographic Office contain hundreds — he 

 might almost say thousands — of such reports, more complete, probably, 

 than similar records in any other office in the world, and he regarded it as 

 worth} 7 of an earnest effort on the part of all concerned to see that means 

 were provided for their publication and circulation among the hundreds of 

 voluntary observers who have willingly contributed their time and services 

 in taking and recording their observations day after day, month after 

 month, and year after year, aboard vessels in every ocean of the globe. 



To illustrate the special dangers of navigation in the West Indies, the 

 birthplace and natural habitat of these terrible storms, a copy of one of 

 the Hydrographic Office charts was projected upon the screen, and atten- 

 tion called to the intricate and dangerous character of navigation in these 

 waters. Remembering the circulation of the wind in one of these cyclonic 

 storms, it will be readily seen that every hurricane that skirts the West 

 Indies and the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, is sure to put hun- 

 dreds of vessels in danger of being driven on a lee shore, and lost beyond 

 all human power of deliverance. Just such tracks were those followed by 

 the two hurricanes of August, 1887, which were then exhibited, plotted 

 from more complete and reliable data, by far, than have ever been col- 

 lected in connection with any hurricanes on record. The tracks of only a 

 few of the many vessels from which reports had been received were shown 

 upon the same chart, and served to give some idea of the completeness of 

 the data. Of these, the first originated off the coast of Africa, about the 

 Cape Verde Islands, August thirteenth, and moved at a high rate of speed 

 westward, across the Atlantic, recurving east of Florida, striking Cape Hat- 

 teras with furious energy on the twentieth, carrying havoc among the gal- 

 lant fishermen off the Grand Banks on the twenty-second, and passing to 

 the northward of the British Isles and coast of Norway on the twenty-ninth 

 and thirtieth — a track more than seven thousand miles in length. What 

 a tremendous engine of destruction! 



"Let us," said the speaker, "watch its original progress. Imagine to 

 yourself a hot, sultry August day in the tropics, off the Cape Verde Islands, 

 at about the northern limit of the belt of equatorial rains and calms, where 

 the northeast trades have become fitful and irregular. The uniformity of 

 the trade sky is disappearing, and the little masses of cumulus clouds that 

 have flecked the sky from zenith to horizon gather together here and there, 

 as if undecided what to do, and now and then rise in tall, massive columns, 

 that grow before the eye and mount higher and higher, till one lazily won- 

 ders how high they will rise above their broad level bases before they reach 

 some upper current that will scatter their beautiful crests and spoil their 

 snow-white symmetry. In the distance an occasional dark mass is seen, 

 from which heavy rain is falling, with sometimes a broad flash of sheet 

 lightning. In one of the tall masses of cumulus, off to the westward, taller 

 and more majestic than its mates, a slow gyratory motion can be detected, 

 which, gathering strength, rapidly draws in the warm air from below, sat- 

 urated with moisture, and sends it aloft into cooler and cooler regions, to 

 add rapidly to the growing and darkening mass of clouds. A new feature 

 catches the eye; long, graceful, snow-white, feathery plumes reach out at 

 the top of the mass, projected against the deep, clear azure sky. Beneath 

 them the sharp rounded, upper edges of the now dark and threatening 

 cumulus begin to grow misty and indistinct, and the inner shafts of the 

 radiating cirrus plumes are lost to sight in this now misty vail. Gradually 

 faint, and then sharp, dark, horizontal lines appear against the cumulus, and 

 rapidly grow into stratus clouds, as though a fine rain were falling and set- 

 tling at the level. Below, the distant horizon is now obscured by heavy rain. 



