146 CYCLONES. 
of a Cyclone you are standing (remembering that the wind always 
rotates in one and the same direction round it), that of necessity 
your left side must be towards the lowest pressure when your back 
is turned towards the wind. In the Eastern seas of India and 
China very furious Cyclones, which there are called Typhoons, 
are often experienced at certain times of the year. They are really 
rather small but very severe Cyclones, whose violence increases 
very much towards the middle ; at the actual centre there is, how- 
ever, 2 dead calm. Now you will easily understand that it is 
most important for the safety of ships that they should be kept as 
far as possible from the centres of these terrible storms. In 
order to do this there is a regular code of rules drawn up for ships 
sailing in the Eastern seas, which are based entirely on the law of 
the rotation of wind round the centre of a Cyclone. I will not 
trouble you with these now, but only mention them as an instance 
of the use of the study of the laws of Cyclones. 
Before leaving the subject of Typhoons I should like to mention 
again the extraordinary calm which is experienced in the centre of 
these destructive circular storms. The comparative few who have 
been in this centre and come out again alive, describe the calm as 
absolute, and above the blue sky is clearly seen. This calm and 
spot of clear sky above is supposed to be the place where most of 
the air which has rushed round and into the Typhoon, is carried 
upwards into the higher regions of the atmosphere. I have 
spoken of this up-rush of air in Cyclones before, but I believe 
that in the large size Cyclones which pass over us here in Europe, 
the calm centre so well marked in Typhoons is not very marked. 
At any rate it is not sufficient to lead to a mistake once made by 
a mariner not used to Typhoons, who, after running his sailing 
vessel safely into the middle calm spot of one, there hoisted all his 
sails, thinking fair weather had come at last. The result of this 
experiment may be imagined when the Typhoon had moved on 
a little. : 
Now that we know a little about the constitution of Cyclones, g 
I should like to say something about the weather, which usually 
accompanies them in their passage over us. If you will refer to 
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