CHAPTER V 

 A WINTER OF CYCLONES 



WHEN, after that Atlantic voyage, Captain Snowdon, 

 the veteran commander of the steamship Wolviston, 

 safely brought his staunch vessel into Hartlepool, 

 on March 18th, 1899, he declared that in the course of 

 his fifty years' experience he had never encountered 

 such fearful weather. 



So remarkable, indeed, were the storms in the North 

 Atlantic Ocean during two months of the winter of 

 1898-9 that a special Memoir relating to them was 

 issued in the following year by the authority of the 

 British Meteorological Council. Through the kindness 

 of Dr. W. N. Shaw, the Director of the Meteorological 

 Office, I have had ready access to this valuable Memoir, 

 whilst the log of the Wolviston has been generously 

 placed at my disposal by Messrs. Webster and Barra- 

 clough, of West Hartlepool, the owners of the vessel. 



This log is as much a human document as it is a 

 distinct contribution to meteorological science, in that 

 it records in detail the W olvistorfs experiences practi- 

 cally throughout that terrible series of cyclones, 

 during which the Wolviston rescued the Cunard liner 

 Pavonia in mid -Atlantic. The intense public interest 

 which was aroused by the prolonged anxiety over the 



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