Hurricanes and Storms of the West Indies. 315 



enter and blow from the open ocean upon the shores of an island 

 or continent. Upon the latter, under such circumstances, the 

 first part of the gale is usually the most severe, and that coast 

 of an island upon which a storm first enters, or blows, also 

 suffers most from the eai-ly part of the gale, but its latter, or 

 receding part, often acts with the greatest fury upon the oppo- 

 site side of the island, which had previovisly derived some de- 

 gree of shelter from the intermediate elevations and other ob- 

 stacles opposed to the force of the wind, the benefit of which is 

 now lost by its counter direction from the open ocean. Owing 

 to similar causes, the force of the storm is sometimes very un- 

 equal at different places, situated in nearly the same part of its 

 track, and such inequality, as we have before intimated, neces- 

 sarily pertains to two places, one of which is near the centre, 

 and the other towards the margin of the route. 



Of the multitude of facts by which these views might be il- 

 lustrated, we will only state, that in the late hurricane at Bar- 

 badoes (that of August 1831), the trees near the northern coast 

 of that island lay from N.N.W. to S.S.E., having been pros- 

 trated by a northerly wind in the earlier part of the storm, 

 while in the interior and some other parts of the island, they 

 were found to lie from south to north, having fallen in the later 

 period of the gale. That after the same hurricane, advices 

 that were received from the islands of St Croix and Porto Rico 

 (which lay near the northern margin of its track), stated that 

 no hurricane had been experienced at these islands ; but it af- 

 terwards appeared that some portions of these islands had suf- 

 fered damage from this hurricane in the night of the 12th to 

 13th of August, two days after it passed over the island of 

 Barbadoes. — That the sea-islands which border the coast of 

 Georgia and the Carolinas, ai'e known to suffer greatly from 

 these tempests, while little or no injury is sustained in the in- 

 terior at the distance of a few miles from the coast. One of 

 the most striking characteristics of these storms, is the heavy 

 swell which in open sea is often known to extend itself on both 

 sides of the track, entirely beyond the range of the gale by 

 which it was produced. The last hurricane to which we have 

 alludetl, threw its swell with tremendous force upon the north- 

 ern shores of Jamaica, having passed to the northward of that 

 island. 



