OMS Oe ee ee eee De ee ee 
On the prevailing Storms of the Atlantic Coast. 17 
in action; the whole perhaps constituting the least costly and the 
most durable and powerful steam boat. 
But it remains to say, that although safety is thus hae for, 
the covered barge is capable of being the swiftest as well as the most 
convenient and elegant method of carrying passengers; because the 
proportion of power that may be placed on board the engine boat 
may be much greater than usual, while the buoyancy of the tia 
occasions, in a smooth wake, little resistance. 
itherto the requisite timber and iron, in a hull where the engine 
works perpendicularly and the cabins are so long as to afford ane 
accommodations, has been are that perhaps the carpenter’s bill of 
no class of vessels has been so 
If these suggestions should a to eumabe the extension or profit 
of this branch of navigation, the appropriation of your pages to this 
subject thus liberally will not be without public benefit. 
Respectfully yours, &c. 
Joun L. Suuwivan. 
New York, Feb. 19, 1831. 
Arr. 1V.— Remarks on the prevailing Storms of the Atlantic coast, 
of the North American States ; by Witt1am C. Reprrep, of 
the city of New York. 
Tne changes which usually occur in our atmosphere may be con- 
sidered as of two kinds or classes. In the one class are recognized 
those effects which are the result of gradual variations in the temper- 
ature, humidity, and density of the atmosphere. In the other, we 
include all those active and more striking changes, which result from 
the agency of unusual or irregular movements of the atmospheric cur- 
rents. ‘These pineannidenas movements we denominate storms, hur- 
ricanes, &c.; and they exhibit, or develope the most striking atmos- 
pheric phenomena with which we are acquainted. 
The occurrence of storms is sometimes conjecturally ascribed to 
mere changes in electricity ; but the natural tendency to equilibrium, 
in the more subtle, as well as the denser fluids, appears to forbid 
this supposition, and these electrical changes seem rather to occur in 
consequence of other disturbing causes, which operate to destroy the 
general equilibrium. It has been justly remarked, that to ascribe 
ng phenomenon, with the cause of which we are unacquainted, to 
Voit. XX.—No. 1. 3 
