1864.] 365 [Lesley. 



Mr. H. S. Eaton remarks, in his paper on the antagonism of the polar 

 and equatorial currents (Art. xli, Proc. B. Met. Soc, June, 1863), 

 that " from some years' study of cyclonic storms and their courses 

 Europewards, he should say that the greater proportion of these cir- 

 cular storms traverse the Atlantic in zones, parallel somewhat to the 

 dotted line on his map of the great storm of the 18th and 19th of 

 May, 1863, their course, however, varying according as the sun is 

 north or south of the equator, their course being more northerly as 

 the sun approaches the tropic of Cancer, and more southerly as it 

 recedes therefrom." The line he draws, is one almost parallel to the 

 course of the Canada after leaving the coast of Ireland, or about S. 20° 

 W. (true). The coincidence of this course with that of the axis of 

 the Gulf Stream after leaving the Banks, is a marked feature. No 

 one yet, to my knowledge, has thoroughly discussed the action of the 

 mass of air warmed, and no doubt also propelled in that direction, 

 by the moving surfiice of the Gulf Stream, upon the wall of colder 

 air to the north of it, and the vault of cold air overhead ; yet we 

 have in their apposition and reaction a cause of great and regular dis- 

 turbance. Even if the mass of cold air to the north must be re- 

 garded as moving in the same direction, the different rates of the 

 two movements, and the perpetual struggle of the lower part of the 

 northern mass to inflow, and of the warm mass to uprise, must pro- 

 duce complicated movements of great regularity, and in the main 

 vortical in a retrograde sense. 



Admiral Fitzroy considers that he has established the occur- 

 rence of cyclones of destructive violence but limited area, originat- 

 ing locally in the vicinity of the British Islands. Are we then to 

 look for such a spontaneous origination of vortical disturbances at any 

 point along the track of our cyclones between America and Great 

 Britain, or are they conflned in their origin to the vicinity of land ? 



The principal points of interest, are the rate of the cyclones by which 

 their relative distances might be measured, and the question of their 

 generation about the 45th degree of west longitude, or their descent at 

 that meridian from the upper regions of the atmosphere over the At- 

 lantic seaboard States. 



Pending nominations Nos. 508 to 521, and new nomina- 

 tion No. 522 were read. 



Kesolutions recommended by the Publication Committee, 

 for the purchase of okl copies of exhausted editions of the 

 Transactions, old series, for the printing of No. 1, and title- 



