54^ Voyage of the Novara. 



trade, wliicli enters the northern part of the China Sea, and 

 at tin's season Is gradually veering round till it completely 

 displaces the S.W. monsoon, as also during the S.W. mon- 

 soon itself, which blows from Formosa on the south, there 

 appears to exist to the northward of the latter-named island, 

 favoured probably by its natural configuration and physical 

 features, a well-defined space within which the barometer is 

 always depressed, and in which the atmosphere in immediate 

 contact with these N. E. and S.W. winds is compelled to as- 

 sume a sort of whirling motion, like that of the hands of a 

 clock, thus forming the germ as it were of a cyclone. 



So long as the S. W. wind was blowing strongly, the centre 

 of the cyclone moved in an easterly direction, or in other 

 words, in the direction of least resistance. But arrested in 

 its advance by the various island groups, as also by the gradu- 

 ally increasing pressure of the S. E. and E. winds, the cyclone 

 must, in consequence of the obstacles opposed to its path, have 

 swung round with a sort of whirl, which once more impressed 

 upon it a N. W. direction to the coasts of China, there to ex- 

 pend itself, apparently in consequence of the ever-increasing 

 j^ressure of the surrounding atmosphere. During forty-eight 

 hours, namely from 6 p. m. of the 18th to the same hour on 

 the 20th, we were within the range of the typhoon itself, and 

 on the 19th were at the nearest point to its vortex ; neverthe- 

 less, judging by our lowest barometrical reading, we must have 

 been at least 100 miles distant from the centre. It was the 

 first typhoon that visited Chinese waters in 1858, and had 



