THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS CURRENTS. 



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which at Barbadoes forced its way into every part of the Government-house, and tore off 

 most of the roof, though the walls were three feet thick, and the doors and windows had 

 been well barricaded. Obliged to retreat from thence, the Governor and his family fled 

 to the ruins of the foundation of the flag-staff, and, compelled to relinquish that station, 

 they with difficulty reached the cannon of the fortifications, under the carriages of which 

 they took shelter. But here they were not secure, for the cannons were moved by the 

 fuiy of the wind, and they dreaded every moment that the guns would be dismounted, 

 and crush them by their fall. From the preceding accounts it appears, that the agency 

 of electricity is frequently extensively developed in hurricanes; that they have a 

 progressive motion ; that calms of short duration occur during their continuance ; after 

 which the wind bursts forth from a quarter different to that from which it has been 

 blowing ; peculiarities which have led to a theory respecting storms which may be 

 considered as established in its leading principles. 



Down to the present century, a hurricane was generally deemed to be simply a gale of 

 wind pursuing with immense velocity a rectilinear direction. Colonel Capper departed 

 from this idea after investigating the storms of the Indian Ocean, and published the 

 conclusion in the year 1801, that the hurricanes he had examined in that region were 

 real whirlwinds of varying diameter, having a progressive as well as a rotatory motion. 

 The evidence collected from the records of an immense number of storms in the Atlantic 

 by Mr Eedfield of New York, and in the Indian Ocean by Colonel Reid, has established 

 beyond all dispute the fact, that they are eddies in the atmosphere, having an outer circle, 

 where the air revolves with intense velocity, and an interior space, the diameter of which 

 is sometimes equal to several hundred miles, the vortex of the whirlwind, which is the 

 scene of gusts and lulls, a comparatively slow progressive motion on the surface of land 

 and sea distinguishing the whole. A hurricane, which occurred at New Brunswick in the 

 year 1835, strikingly exhibited the character of a revolving storm; for, while about the 

 centre bodies of great weight were carried spirally upwards, at the extremities the trees 

 were thrown in opposite directions. The same circumstance was observed at Barbadoes 

 in 1831, near the northern coast: the trees which the hurricane uprooted lay from N.N.W. 

 to S.S.E., having been thrown down by a northerly wind, while in some other parts of 

 the island they lay from S. to N., having been prostrated by a southerly wind. It is 

 evident, therefore, that the direction of the wind at a particular point affords no indication 

 of the course in which the whole revolving mass of the atmosphere is advancing. 

 Another singular conclusion is, that the rotatory motion of the air, in the northern 

 hemisphere, is in a direction against the hands of a watch; and the reverse in the 

 southern hemisphere, or ivith the hands of a watch. It is also ascertained, that 

 while the axis of a storm in the North Atlantic has a progressive motion from 

 the equator obliquely towards the north pole, that of one in the Indian Ocean proceeds 

 obliquely from the equator towards the south pole. In the Pacific Ocean, a region 

 of hurricanes, their revolving motion is decisively sanctioned by the evidence which 

 has been obtained respecting them. Mr Williams, the missionary, describes a hurricane 

 at Raratonga, one of the Hervey islands, during which the rain descended in deluging 

 torrents, the lightning darted in fiery streams among the dense black clouds, the 

 thunder rolled deep and loud through the heavens, and the island trembled to its 

 very centre as the war of the elements raged over it. Scarcely a banana or plantain 

 tree was left, either on the plains, or in the valleys, or upon the mountains ; hundreds 

 of thousands of which, on the preceding day, covered and adorned the land with their 

 foliage and fruit ; and immense chestnuts, which had withstood the storms of ages, 

 were laid prostrate on the groupd, while those that remained erect had scarcely a branch, 

 and were all leafless. It was observed, that when the gale ended, the wind was in the 



