406 PHILOSOPHY OF STORMS. 



underneath, experienced great losses. In the bay of St. 

 Croix, the torrent of Barranco Santo increased amazingly 

 on the night of the storm ; the impulse of the current be- 

 came more violent at the mouth of the ravine, and was felt 

 in the port, and was sufficient to send out a vessel on the 

 point of landing. 



Such were the effects of the storm which ravaged Tene- 

 riffe ; as to the phenomena which was manifested in the 

 duration, I shall relate the events communicated to me by 

 two persons worthy of confidence. I shall have little to 

 say from my own observations, as I was very much occu- 

 pied from the time the storm began till it was over. 



On the 6th of November, I was at La Laguna ; it was 

 some hours before the event. My friend, Dr. Savinon, pro- 

 fessor of philosophy in the university of St. Ferdinando, 

 advised me to remain with him, or to hasten to my home 

 at St. Croix. I recollect his very words. " Since this morn- 

 ing," said he, " my barometer has been moving. Some- 

 thing extraordinary will take place in the air. Hasten and 

 depart before the heavy shower." I followed his advice, 

 and was convinced, on the road home, of the truth of his 

 warning. The wind, which was at the S. W., before my 

 leaving the doctor, had passed to the south, and seemed to 

 incline to the east. This tendency in the wind to run over 

 the parts of the horizon, unravelled at once the first evi- 

 dence of a phenomenon, which I had twice witnessed in 

 America. It was indeed the storm of the Antilles, it came 

 with its forerunners, but this time, beyond its ordinary 

 limits, it rushed on a region which I should have thought 

 sheltered from its ravages. Masses of black clouds were 

 gathered round the horizon, and seemed to ascend rapidly 

 to the zenith; a long train of light clouds stretched from 

 the south east to the north west, and the sky became darker 

 every instant. The air was suffocating, transparent and 

 sonorous, the wind came in squalls, accompanied by large 



