118 Observations on the Hurricanes and Storms 
_ In the foregoing statements our design has been to designate in a 
summary manner the principal movements which, in these regions at 
least, constitute a storm; and we do not attempt to notice the various 
irregularities, and subordinate or incidental movements and phenom- 
ena of the atmosphere, with which a storm may chance to be con- 
nected, or which may necessarily result from such violent movements 
in a fluid which is so tenuous and elastic in its character. It may be 
remarked in general, that the most active or violent storms are usually 
he most regular and uniform in the development of those character- 
istic movements which we have already described. It is also prob- 
able, that the vortex or rotative axis, of a violent gale or hurricane, 
oscillates in its course with considerable rapidity, in a moving circuit 
of moderate extent, near the centre of the hurricane ; and such an 
eccentric movement of the vortex may; for aught we know, be es- 
sential to the continued activity or force of the hurricane. Such a 
movement will fully account for the violent flaws or gusts of wind, 
and the intervening Julls or remissions, which are so often experien+ 
ced towards the heart of a storm or hurricane, when in open sea ; 
but of its existence we have no positive evidence. 
It frequently happens that a storm during the first part of its prog- 
ress over a given point, fails to take effect upon the surface, while it 
exhibits its full activity at a greater altitude. This commonly hap- 
pens when this portion of the storm arrives from, or has recently blown 
over a more elevated country, or is passing or blowing from the land 
to the sea. On land the most violent effects are usually felt from 
those storms which enter and blow directly from the open ocean upon 
the shores of an island or continent. Upon the latter, under such cir- 
cumstances, 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 early part of the gale, but its later or receding 
part, often acts with the greatest fury upon the opposite side of the 
island, which had previously derived some degree of shelter from 
the intermediate elevations and other obstacles 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 unequal at different places, situated in nearly 
the same part of its track, and such inequality, as we have before in- 
timated, necessarily pertains to two places one of which is near the 
centre and the other towards the margin of the route. 
