350 



NA TURE 



[August 13, 1891 



local wind direction is the only datum available, and I 

 found that in the north of the Bay of Bengal, as the mean 

 result of 132 measurements, the angle included between 

 the wind arrow and the radius vector of the vortex was 

 122° (or 32° greater than a right angle), and that of twelve 

 positions within 50 miles of the storm-centre, that is to 

 say, in the inner circle of the hurricane, 123^. In the 

 south of the bay it was 7° greater. Prof. Loomis, taking 

 into account the land as well as the marine obser- 

 vations, and all barometric depressions, whether storms 

 or otherwise, obtained an angle 25° greater, and dif- 

 fering only by 33° from the radial direction. It is 

 hardly necessary to refer to Prof Loomis's results of 

 his examination of the Manilla cyclone of October 1882, 

 which gave an angle of 118°, or to Mr. Meldrum's work 

 on the cyclones of the South Indian Ocean, which has 

 already been quoted by Mr. Archibald in his article in 

 Nature, mentioned above. All testify uniformly and in 

 the strongest manner to the sharp spiral indraught of the 

 winds in tropical cyclones, so that, as Prof Loomis has 

 truly remarked, " we thus see that tropical storms are 

 spouts and not cyclones, and it is unfortunate that the 

 term cyclone should have been ever adopted." In this 

 view I fully agree, and I make M. Faye a present of the 

 admission, that in an etymological sense, if in no other, 

 Mr. Piddington's typical cyclones are not cyclones at all. 



With all these results of a quarter of a century's ex- 

 perience present to my mind, when a gentleman holding 

 the high position of M. Faye reiterates the assertion that 

 the winds of tropical cyclones blow in circles, and that if 

 ever they are found to blow spirally inwards such in- 

 stances are not true cyclones (in the ordinarily accepted, i.e. 

 denotative, meaning of the term), the impression I receive 

 is somewhat such as M. Faye would probably experience 

 were some equally eminent scientific authority to assert in 

 his presence that the Ptolemaic system truly represents 

 the relative movements of the sun and planets, and that 

 the heliocentric scheme of Copernicus is a "pr^tendu 

 systeme." If, indeed, M. Faye prefers to avail himself of 

 the admission made above, to relegate Mr. Piddington's 

 typical cyclones to the category of "prdtendus cyclones," 

 and therefore to exclude them from his theory, my present 

 argument falls to the ground ; but in that case his cyclone 

 becomes the mere abstract definition of a term, and it 

 remains to be shown that there is anything corresponding 

 to it in Nature. That, however, in his latest communica- 

 tion to the Co7}iptes rendus, he intended his assertions to 

 apply to these tropical cyclones is abundantly apparent. 



Can it be that M. Faye is unacquainted with the mass 

 of original evidence embodied in the Indian cyclone re- 

 ports, in Mr. Meldrum's writings on the cyclones of the 

 South Indian Ocean, and with Prof Loomis's work, in 

 which these and many others are discussed } It would 

 indeed seem so, since in none of his writings have I ever 

 seen any reference to any other Indian author than Mr. 

 Piddington, and even in his case it is difficult to believe 

 that M. Faye has done more than simply accept Mr. 

 Piddington's conclusions, without attempting to verify 

 them by an examination of the original data. But if this 

 be really the case— if he has taken so little pains to 

 ascertain the fundamental facts, and to test the soundness 

 of his speculations by an appeal to the evidence of the 

 last twenty-five years— it is indeed strange that he can put 

 forward confident assertions on a matter with which his 

 acquaintance is so imperfect, and that he can disseminate 

 statements that are demonstrably erroneous, and may be 

 fraught with danger to the lives and property of those who 

 accept him as their guide, backed with the high authority 

 that must necessarily attach to his name. 



It is a far from edifying spectacle to see such a man, in 

 his latest communications to the Comptes rendus, quoting 

 with complacency any isolated passage in the writings of 

 leading meteorologists which seems to promise some 

 support to his tottering theory, and ignoring all that 



NO. I 137, VOL. 44] 



would tell against it. That such cyclones as originate 

 beyond the tropics are, in the first instance, movements 

 of the higher atmosphere, has been rendered very 

 probable by Dr. Hann's demonstration of the tempera- 

 ture relations of cyclones and anticyclones ; but nothing 

 that Dr. Hann has ever written has shown that he is in 

 the least inclined to accept M. Faye's strange hypothesis 

 of a descending current as the leading feature ot cyclones 

 and tornadoes. That the clearing of the skies in the 

 central calm of a tropical cyclone may be due to the 

 descent of a certain amount of air, although not de- 

 cisively proved, is yet not improbable ; but what would 

 be thought of a man who, standing on a river bank, and 

 seeing an upward current in the back-water immediately 

 below him, should shut his eyes to the broad stream 

 beyond, and assert, on the strength of his observation, that 

 rivers flow from the sea to the mountains ? Yet such, and 

 no other, is the relation of this descending current to the 

 great body of the cyclone. All may admit, with Prof von 

 Bezold, that there is much in the views hitherto prevalent 

 as to the origin of cyclones and anticyclones that requires 

 modification, and it may yet be long before these pheno- 

 mena are fully and satisfactorily explained. There are 

 many points of difference between the storms of the 

 tropics and those of the temperate zone which seem to 

 show that the forces that are principally active in the 

 former play but a secondary part in the latter. But 

 certainly there is no apparent tendency on the part of the 

 leading meteorologists of Europe and America to accept 

 M. Faye's idolon species as a true theory of cyclones and 

 tornadoes, nor is it in the least likely that such will ever 

 be witnessed. Henry F. Blanford. 



NOTES. 



The arrangements for the meeting of the British Association 

 are now nearly complete. In a former note we referred among 

 other matters to the excursions. We now learn that among 

 them the organization of the pedestrian excursions to the Black 

 Mountains is so far advanced that the detailed programme is now 

 ready, and can be obtained by application to the Local Secre- 

 taries. 



The Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and 

 Ireland opened their annual meeting in Edinburgh on Tuesday. 

 At noon there was a reception of the members in the National 

 Portrait Gallery by the President and Council of the Society of 

 Antiquaries of Scotland. The inaugural meeting took place in 

 the lecture-hall of the Royal Geographical Society. Sir 

 Herbert Maxwell, on taking the chair, remarked that the closing 

 years of a century naturally suggested the process of stock- 

 taking, and as they had arrived at the last decade of a century 

 which claimed to have witnessed beyond all precedent the 

 accumulation of scientific knowledge, it was not unnatural 

 that they should direct inquiry into the standing obtained 

 by. that particular branch of science in which they 

 were all concerned. After a brief summary he stated that one 

 of the problems which was pressing upon antiquaries at the 

 present time was that relating to those mysterious rock sculptures 

 which from time to time were found in increasing numbers all 

 over Scotland. They bore a striking resemblance to similar 

 rock sculptures found not only in Scandinavia and Central 

 Europe, but in such remote parts of the earth as Asia, and 

 Northern, Central, an I Southern America. They could hazard 

 no guess even at the race by whom they were made, still less at 

 the object of their authors. All they could do was to record the 

 discovery of them with careful drawings, and wait till perhaps- 

 light wo.dd flash upon them from the habit of some uncivilized 

 trite or from a passage in some hitherto unnoticed writer.. 



