AND INUNDATION. 135 



the rocky shore of the channel which unites the 

 bay with the sea, where a powerful current 

 struggling with the tempest produced a frightful 

 surf. Fortunately, the extreme violence of the 

 storm lasted only a few hours, but in that short 

 time it caused a destructive inundation : the 

 water spread so rapidly over the low lands, 

 that our people had scarcely time to secure the 

 tent, with the astronomical apparatus. On com- 

 paring the time of day at St. Petersburg and 

 St. Francisco, by means of the difference of 

 longitude, it appears that the tremendous inun- 

 dation at the former city took place not only 

 on the same day, but even began in the same 

 hour as that in California. Several hundred 

 miles westward, on the Sandwich Islands, the 

 wind raged with similar fury at the same time, 

 as it did also still farther off, upon the Philip- 

 pine Islands, where it was accompanied by an 

 earthquake. So violent was the storm in the 

 Bay of INIanilla, (usually so safe a harbour,) 

 that a French corvette, at anchor there, under 

 the command of Captain Bougainville, a son of 

 the celebrated navigator, was entirely dismast- 



