es 
Relations of Storms to Contiguous Currents. 323 
em and western coasts of Yucatan, the general winds are inter- 
__ * rupted by hard Northers, in the season of them.* 
| _ -* "That these northers of Central America move in a reeu 
course of progression, like other storms, cannot well be doubted. 
; In the case of the Racer’s gale, we have seen that the course cor- 
responds with the westerly progression of hurricanes which have 
___- visited the windward islands of the Antilles; while in the two 
. Cuba storms, which have been considered, the northeasterly pro- 
: gression has been found commencing in the northwesterly portion 
of the Caribean sea. A like course with the latter, I find was 
pursued also by other hurricanes from the Caribean sea, which 
have crossed the central portion of Cuba. 
_ A-similar course, at least from the north side of Cuba, was taken 
by that destructive hurricane of the western Atlantic which pass- 
ed the coast of the United States on the 11th of December, 1844. 
. The hurricane which devastated the western part of Jamaica on 
the 3d of October, 1780, also pursued a northeasterly course from 
the Caribean sea, as I had occasion to notice in 1836 has 
ee we 
+] 
nce been fully shown by Col. Reid, in his work ;+ and is the 
Most eastward of the storm tracks known to belong to this par- 
ticular group. Of these storms which have thus crossed the 
island of Cuba, not one has. been traced from the eastern por- 
tions of the Caribean sea, and hence there is reason to conclude 
that they can only have belonged, locally, to the class of storms 
known under the appellation of Northers, on the western borders 
- Rexarions or tHe Cusa Gate to Contiguous Wuxps anp 
au Currents.—These relations may be viewed, first, in ref- 
as erence to the rotation of the gale, and second, to its geographical 
progression. 
> DEA tings already referred to the natural tendency to a left-wise 
3 fotation in the winds of the northern hemisphere, when moving 
4 | n the earth’s surface from the equator-towards the poles. But 
tis evident, from the prevalence of violent storms in some re- 
_ Sions and their absence from other localities in like latitudes, that 
this general tendency of rotation does not serve to explain the 
actual distribution or prevalence of these storms. I have found, 
ue however, ona careful examination of marine Journals, that this 
~-* Derrotero de las Antillas.—American Coast Pilot, &c. 
‘Lond. Nautical Magazine, v, 203-204. This Journal, xxxi, 120. 
y 
* 
