452 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



together at their extremities, and embrace between them an elliptical cloudless space, 

 from half a mile to four or five miles in breadth, and from eight to thirty miles in length, 

 the breadth being from east to west, and the length from north to south. Soon after the 

 complete formation of the Helm-bar, a violent wind issues from the space between the 

 clouds, generally blowing directly from the east, and with such power that trees have been 

 dismantled of their foliage, stacks of grain dispersed, and heavy vehicles overturned. The 

 helm-wind has continued for as much as nine days together, with a noise resembling that 

 of a violent sea-storm, but it is seldom accompanied with any rain. It has been suggested, 

 that the air from the coast of Northumberland, being cooled as it rises to the summit of 

 the mountains, and there condensed, descends from thence with great force, by its gravity, 

 into the district to the west of Hartside, the scene of the phenomenon : but obviously a 

 variety of other causes must enter into its production. 



In several parts of the globe, an extensive vacuum being suddenly created by the 

 rapid condensation of vapour, the surrounding air rushes in with immense impetuosity 

 from all points of the compass, blowing in gusts of resistless power, destroying all the 

 productions of the earth, levelling forests and the firmest buildings, and inundating whole 

 tracts of country by the deluge of rain with which they are accompanied. These storms 

 seldom occur far out in the open ocean, or beyond the tropics, or nearer the equator 

 than nine or ten degrees. Their principal localities are the West India islands, those of 

 Madagascar, Mauritius, and Bourbon, the north-west coast of Africa, the Bay of Bengal, 

 and the Chinese Sea, where they are variously called hurricanes, tornadoes, and typhoons. 

 A heavy swell upon the sea, a dusky redness of the sky, a close oppressive air, and a wild 

 irregularity in the appearance of things, are the usual precursors of a tropical tempest. 

 Though generally confined to the districts mentioned, where they are of frequent 

 occurrence, the extratropical latitudes, at more distant intervals, experience the force of 



the hurricane. 



" When were the winds 

 Let slip with such a warrant to destroy ? 

 When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap 

 Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry ? " 



This is the language of Cowper in the Task, respecting the year 1783, when, amid the other 

 events of that portentous season, noticed upon a previous page, a succession of storms, 

 accompanied with violent rains, visited the whole of Great Britain, and caused considerable 

 damage. But what is known in our records as the " Great Storm," occurred on the night 

 of the 26th and the morning of the 27th of November, 1703, and has been referred to by 

 almost all the writers of that period. Derham, in the Philosophical Transactions for the 

 year following, states: " Of the preceding parts of the year (1703), the months of April, 

 May, June, and July were wet in the southern parts of England, particularly in May, 

 when more rain fell than in any month of any year since 1690 ; June also was very wet ; 

 and though July had considerable intermissions, yet on the 28th and 29th there fell violent 

 showers of rain, and the newspapers gave accounts of great rains that month from divers 

 places of Europe. On Thursday, November 25th, the day before the tempest, in the 

 morning there was a little rain, the winds high in the afternoon. In the evening there 

 was lightning, and between nine and ten o'clock at night a violent but short storm of wind, 

 and much rain. Next morning, November 26th, the wind was S. S. TV., and high all 

 day,, and so continued till I was in bed and asleep. About twelve that night the storm 

 awakened me, which gradually increased till near three that morning, and from thence till 

 near seven it continued with the greatest violence ; then it began to abate slowly and the 

 mercury to rise swiftly." This tempest filled the whole kingdom with terror, and produced 

 immense commercial loss, and many melancholy accidents. The country between the 



