236 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194 5 



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Figube 1. — Tracks of the hurricanes of 1815, 1821, 1938, and 1944 (origins not 

 shown). Date positions are those at 7 a.m. The tracks of the storms of 

 1938 and 1944 differ a little from those heretofore published, for the following 

 reasons : With regard to that for 1938, Mr. I. R. Tannehill, the chief hurricane 

 expert of the Weather Bureau, and author of "Hurricanes : Their Nature and 

 History" (5th ed., Princeton, 1944), wrote (personal communication, late 

 1944) : "It seems to me that it would be better to place the center of the hur- 

 ricane at about the 74th meridian as it passed Hatteras. Pierce's maps (The 

 meteorological history of the New England hurricane of September 21, 1938, 

 Month. Weather Rev., vol. 67, pp. 237-285, figs. 12 and 18, August 1939) would 

 indicate that at 4 p. m. on September 21, the radius of the area covered by 

 the 29.60 isobar had increased considerably, whereas the radius of the area 

 covered by the 29.30 isobar would have diminished somewhat, judging by 

 reports to the westward. It seems more reasonable to assume both had in- 

 creased in this interval, I think you are right that some of our charts show 

 the center a little too far to the westward as it passed Hatteras, but it seems 

 to me that a position about midway between the two (near 74° W.) would 



