192 Miscellanies. 
which action is the sole cause of the violence which they may exhibit; 
and that the storms of the Atlantic Ocean are drifted in a determinate 
direction, conforming to that of the general atmospheric current of 
the region in which they occur. ‘The late hurricane in the West 
dies, having from its peculiar violence attracted considerable atten- 
tion, I am induced to offer you the following notices of its appeat- 
ance and progress, which have been obtained from various sources. 
The earliest accounts are from the Island of Barbadoes, where 
the hurricane raged with great violence, on the night of the 10th of 
August. On the 11th it passed over the islands of St. Vincent, and 
St. Lucia, extending its influence to Martinico and the neighboring 
islands on the north, and to Grenada on the south, but exhibiting its 
chief violence between 12° 30’ and 14° 30 of north latitude. On 
the 12th itarrived on the southern coast of the Island of Porto Rico. 
From the 12th to the 13th it swept over the island of Hayti or 5 
Domingo, and extended its influence as far southward as Jamaica. 
On the 13th it raged on the eastern portion of Cuba, sweeping 
inits course over large districts, if not the whole of that extensive 
island. On the 14th it was at Havanna, towards the West end of 
the same island. Of its progress on the 15th we have no distinct 
accounts; but on the 16th and 17th it arrived on the northern shores 
of the Gulf of Mexico, in about the 30° north latitude, raging simul . 
taneously at Pensacola, Mobile, and New-Orleans, where its effects 
were continued till the 18th, thus having occupied a period of six 
days in its passage from Barbadoes to New Orleans. 
From the coast of the gulf of Mexico the storm entered upon the 
territories of the adjoining States, where it appears to have spent IF 
self in heavy rains. If its peculiar action was longer continued, 
must have been only in the higher atmosphere, as we have no a 
count of any violent effects at the surface nearer than the Southem 
States. 
When accounts of huricanes were formerly received, aS occurring 
at different islands, on various dates, with marked differences also 
the direction of the wind, it was taken for granted that those vielen 
winds were rectilinear in their course, and that such accounts, I 
cases, related to different storms. We now discover, however, A 
there is no difficulty in tracing these storms successively from of" 
island ox locality to another, and the direction of the wind Clim 
point or place is found to have no connection with the general P : 
gress or direction of the storm. bgt 
