

Nov. 15, 1888] 



NATURE 



b9 



The arrangements for conducting the work are somewhat as 

 follows : — The College has established and will maintain the 

 laboratory for the prosecution of original researcli. To facilitate 

 such work the Council of the College "appoint a scientific 

 Superintendent, who must devote such portion of his time as may 

 he determined by the Council to the work of the laboratory, 

 where, under the supervision of the Curator and Committee, he 

 shall himself undertake the prosecution of original research, and 

 be prepared to assist, if required to do so, in the work of other 

 investigators. Under like supervision, he shall also be prepared 

 to furnish the Fellows of the College with reports upDn such 

 matters as the histology of morbid specimens, and of the 

 chemical and microscopic characters of urines," in which work 

 he is assisted by the resident assistant. 



The laboratory is open without fee to Fellows and Members 

 of the College, " to any Licentiate who shall obtain the sanction 

 of the Curator and Committee to use the laboratory for the 

 purpose of scientific research," and "to any medical man or 

 investigator who shall obtain the sanction of the Council of the 

 College, as well as of the Curator and Committee, to use the 

 laboratory for the purpose of scientific research.'' 



The whole of the expense of establishment and maintenance 

 has been and will be defrayed from funds placed at the disposal 

 of the Committee by the Council of the College. Of this, an 

 initial grant of £iQOO was made with which to adapt and furnish 

 the house, and buy apparatus, instruments, and chemicals. In 

 addition to this, an annual grant of ;f 650 is made, from which all 

 salaries, rent, and taxes are paid, and stock is kept up. Of these 

 sums, only about ;i^830 of the original ;^iooo, and £(X)0 of the 

 annual grant, were spent during the first twelve months, so that 

 the whole equipment and fittings of the laboratory, together 

 with the current expenses during that period, cost only £\^}p. 



CYCLONES AND CURRENTS. 



A/TR. S. R. ELSON, an experienced pilot of the Hooghly 

 ^ *■ Pilot Service, and author of " The Sailor's East Indian 

 Sky Interpreter," writes as follows with reference to the article 

 on the incurvature of the winds in cyclones, published in 

 Nature, vol. xxxviii. p. 181 : — 



So deeply is [the] " old and exploded error of facts," the eight- 

 point theory of storms, rooted in the minds of some, that, 

 ignoring the reiterated warning voice of science, they will have 

 none other. Do they lean towards it because it is so very simple 

 to look at on paper, and so easy of application ? I fear that is 

 about the truth of it. So very easy, that Piddington, somewhere 

 in his writings, says of a certain old salt whose ship had been 

 dismasted in a cyclone, that if even a junior P. and O. Company's 

 midshipman had had the handling of his vessel, she would have 

 come through the storm scatheless (the P. and O. midshipman, 

 it must be presumed, having been schooled in Piddington's 

 theory) — a reflection which we, with our more extended know- 

 ledge, now perceive was very hard on the old experienced cap- 

 tain. Yet there is the proclaimed peril of using this theory 

 staring mariners sternly in the face. 



But there is one more cogent element of trouble and danger 

 besetting the anxious mariner, which, although taken note of in 

 Mr. Pedler's recent Report on the Meteorology of the Bay, is 

 not generally considered when judging, as Piddington used to 

 do, of a shipmaster's proper or improper management of his 

 vessel in a cyclone, and which will probably account for the 

 numbers of vessels, perhaps widely separated before the cyclone 



ame on, which unaccountably get foul of the comparatively 



inall space called the " eye of the storm " as it progresses on 

 Its fell course, and so have to bear the brunt of the dreaded 

 rear hurricane wind from south-west or west — that is, the great 

 indraught towards the very centre of the waters in which they 

 iloat. 



This whirling indraught, drift, or set of the sea is on the move 

 long before even the air motion above has gained force enough 

 •u impel it, as is so well shown by the westward set at the 

 1 [ooghly Pilot Station, which usually gets up some time before 



very cyclone in the Bay, whether far or near. But the worst of 

 :t is, when the vessel is out of sight of any fixed object, or the 



kies are overcast so as to preclude sights being taken, the force 

 .^nd direction of this inset cannot be calculated and allowed for 

 in the dead reckoning as a "course and distance." And it is 

 only after the gale is over, and a sight can be -taken, that the 



captain is very much astonished to find his vessel's position is so 

 far out of her dead reckoning. 



1 myself, as a pilot, have experienced this perplexity on more 

 than one occasion at the head of the Bay ; and, besides, the 

 published records and logs of vessels involved in these storms 

 show this whirling inset of the sea most conclusively. 



Mr. Blanford's rules for finding the bearing of the centre of 

 storms are evidently calculated to suit all winds ; but some 

 account should be taken of the fact that, in and oflF the Hooghly 

 River at least, whether the cyclone is passing up to the eastward 

 towards Chittagong, coming straight on towards the Hooghly, 

 or passing across the Bay to the westward towards False Point, 

 or Balasore, the first wind blows invariably from north-east 

 until the hard part of the storm is close upon you. No special 

 reason has yet been advanced as to why this should be the case ; 

 yet so it undoubtedly is, as was noticed first by the late Mr. 

 Wilson concerning a cyclone some years back, and as the 

 meteorological registers and logs of ships during later storms 

 well show, and which, years ago, I drew attention to in my 

 little book, " The Sailor's East Indian Sky Interpreter." 



Some authorities of the present day advise, when caught in a 

 cyclone, that vessels should run with the wind more or less on 

 the starboard quarter in the northern hemisphere ; but, taking 

 into consideration the now generally acknowledged wind's in- 

 curvature, and the great inset of the sea which I have drawn 

 attention to above, there is no safety but with the wind on the 

 starboard beam ; always provided, of course, that circumstances 

 of smooth water and sea-room allow of it. As a decisive proof 

 of the advisability of this plan, I may mention that I was in 

 pilotage charge of an inward-bound sailing-ship on the imme- 

 diate advent of, and during, the Midnapur cyclone of June-July 

 1872, in which my brother, also a pilot, lost his life, on the 

 foundering of his storm-battered ship, the Rothsey, in Balasore 

 Bay. Starting from the Pilot's Ridge on the morning of 

 June 27, under close-reefed topsails and with squared-in yards, 

 we stood away on a south-south-east course, with a hard 

 west-south-west gale blowing (wind on starboard beam), for 

 thirty-six hours, and by so doing raising the rapidly-falling 

 barometer from 29 '30 to 29*50 inches, and, as I expected, 

 getting into more moderate weather. 



"Look to leeward for the weather," is the old Dutch sailor's 

 advice, and doubtless there is a power of wisdom in the old saw, 

 which seems to chime in better with the modern theory of eleven 

 to twelve points rather than with the old eight-point theory. 

 And, whilst thanking Mr. Blanford for his latest valuable con- 

 tribution on marine meteorology, as set forth in his letter above 

 alluded to, and looking forward to his promised forthcoming 

 work on the weather and climates of India, I would point out 

 that his directions about finding the bearings of the centre of 

 cyclones of the Bay of Bengal seem to be just a little perplexing 

 to some who read them, when he speaks, as he does, of the 

 wind being three and four points before the beam, while refer- 

 ring to a human being standing with his back to the wind, &c. 

 Of course, what is meant is, supposing a vessel has her stern to 

 the wind, or running with the wind right aft, the centre will be 

 three and four points before the "port" beam; or, in other 

 words, if the wind is, say, nirth-east by north, the centre of 

 the storm will bear south-south-east or south by east, and not 

 south-east by east, or south-east, as it appears is still stubbornly 

 taught by those who should know better. 



A vessel in the northern hemisphere on the starboard tack, 

 unless she happens to be sailing on the same course as the storm, 

 and slower than it is travelling, is invariably going out of bad 

 weather into finer, and out of bad into worse weather when on 

 the port tack. 



But much has to be said with regard to this rule of keeping 

 the wind on the starboard beam, with a view of hastening the 

 vessel's distance from the centre and from the hurricane belt of 

 a cyclone. In the first place, on the left-hand semicircle, each 

 squall, as we have above noticed, bursting down from aloft, 

 comes from the right hand of the surface wind, which it dis- 

 places, and the vessel necessarily comes up in it, ps^rided the 

 storm is stationary, or is not fully developed ; but if It has ob- 

 tained much velocity, its onward progress will counteract this 

 effect, and the wind will remain stationary in direction, or the 

 ship will actually "break off," and, consequently, be more and 

 more in the "trough of the sea " — a position sometimes critical 

 for a ship if she is deep laden, and a high cross-sea is running, 

 as there probably will be under the circumstances. In this case 

 the only alternative left open to the shipmaster is to so reduce 



