200 PHILOSOPHY OF STORMS. 



Now as the centre of the storm passed over or very near 

 all these places, it will readily be perceived that the man- 

 ner in which the wind changed, accords exactly with the 

 idea, that the wind blows inwards towards the centre of 

 these storms ; and not at all with the notion that it blows 

 in the form of a whirlwind. When I take up some of the 

 other storms, I shall notice this fact more particularly. I 

 shall only mention here that Mr. Edwards says, in the third 

 volume of his History of Jamaica, that " all hurricanes 

 begin from the N. y veer back to the W. N. W. t W., and 

 S. S. W.j and ivhen got round to S. E., the foul weather 

 breaks up" And Col. Capper in speaking of a great hur- 

 ricane which occurred on the coast of Coromandel, on the 

 29th October, 1768, page 60, says: "the wind began from 

 the N. W., as is usual at the commencement of these hurri- 

 canes" 



I shall not give charts of this storm for the subsequent 

 days; but if any one who has Col. Reid's book, will read 

 the logs of the Endymion, and the Convert, and the Eg- 

 mont, and the Diamond, for the 15th and 16th, he will find, 

 if he draws arrows on the charts representing the direction 

 of the wind on these several days, a remarkable conver- 

 gence towards the centre of the storm. And if he extends 

 his observations to the 17th and 18th, he may include the 

 Grafton, with the ships mentioned before. Now as these 

 ships were several hundred miles apart, the evidence is con- 

 clusive, that on all these days the wind did blow inwards 

 to the centre of the storm. 



But there is one remarkable feature in this storm which 

 must not be passed over in silence. Its centre in its motion 

 turned out of its regular course and passed over Martinique, 

 a little after midnight of the llth. At this time the Endy- 

 mion, on the N. N. E. of that island, had the wind violent 

 from the E. N. E. ; and at St. Pierre, on the south west 

 side of the same island, the wind was S. W. And the 



