68 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



Hearing is out of the question, for no one sound can 

 penetrate that awful chaos of noise. Even the sense 

 of smell is dominated by the excess of ozone in the 

 atmosphere, making it appear as if the air was loaded 

 with the vapour of sulphur. Remains only the sense 

 of touch, which realizes the intense vibration com- 

 municated to everything, even solid rocks, by this 

 amazing upheaval of the elements, and gives a feeling 

 of instability to even the most stable objects. 



Yet although to the bewildered observer it would 

 seem as if law and order were temporarily in abeyance, 

 and that for a time at least the elements had broken 

 loose from all restraint, in reality law is still supreme, 

 and the whole mass of the atmosphere, even in its 

 maddest violence, moves in obedience to universal law. 

 The storm revolves upon its axis, and proceeds in a 

 given direction withal according to fixed laws, which, if 

 the shipman be conversant with, as he certainly should 

 be, and his ship be manageable, he may gradually 

 work his way out of that terrible circle of destruction. 

 Only at times, when the great revolving storm has 

 reached the end of its ordained path, it may recurve, 

 and, amid confusion worse confounded, fall again upon 

 the hapless vessel, whose crew will be well-nigh re- 

 duced to despair at thus meeting what they cannot 

 help deeming to be a new hurricane so soon after the 

 onslaught of the first. But happily this recurving is 

 most unusual. 



Thus it has been seen how heavily the placid South- 

 East Trade Wind is handicapped in the Indian Ocean, 

 and how severely circumscribed are its limits compared 

 to those free ranges it enjoys in the Atlantic and 

 Pacific Oceans. In the hurricane season, that is from 



