EXAMINATION OF REID'S STORMS. 221 



New York, the citizens of Boston were witnessing the 

 ascent of a balloon, and the aeronaut met with little or no 

 wind. The general course of this storm, northward of 

 Cape Hatteras, appears to have been from S. S. W. to 

 N. N. E., and of its further progress we are uninformed. 



It appears, from the foregoing statement of facts, that this 

 storm, previous to its reaching Long Island, extended but a 

 moderate distance inland, and that its influence seaward 

 from the east, was almost equally limited ; that between 

 these boundaries it maintained a regular progress along the 

 coast from a great distance towards the south, and proba- 

 bly even in the neighborhood of the \Yest India Islands ; 

 that this progress, though slower in the lower latitudes, 

 was, after reaching the American coast, at a rate not greatly 

 differing from thirty geographical, or nautical, miles per 

 hour, which is presumed to have been nearly the velocity 

 of the direct southerly current prevailing in the atmosphere 

 at that time, at a medium height from the surface at this 

 rate of progression, appears to have governed the duration 

 and termination of the storm at each place over which it 

 passed that on the western margin, or verge, of the storm, 

 or at those places most distant from the sea, the wind was 

 north easterly or northerly, while on the opposite verge, at 

 sea, the wind was southerly and westerly ; that along the 

 central portion of the tract, the storm was violent from the 

 south eastern quarter, changing- suddenly to an opposite di- 

 rection ; l and that there was previously and subsequently 

 no prevalence of an easterly wind, nor was there any other 

 apparent cause for a direct movement of the atmosphere 

 from that quarter; all the existing tendencies being in 

 another direction. The centre of the storm, or hurricane, 



1 It is remarkable that not one instance is to be found in this storm in which 

 the wind changed suddenly round to N. W., where it set in from S. E. (See 

 p. 211,4th.) 



