RODRIGUEZ, MAURITIUS AND REUNION. 443 



tlie summit of the Peter Botte Mountain. And now alas how it is 

 changed, for the hurricane of April 29th devastated the island. The 

 town of Port Louis in ruins, country houses unroofed, sugar-mills 

 destroyed, churches levelled, trees broken down, or stripped of every 

 leaf, and sugarcanes flattened to the earth ; ships aground or 

 dismasted, and the lovely gardens at Paraplemousse not recognizable. 

 All this damage was done in 3 hours, and much of it in 5 minutes. 

 For an hour the wind was registered at the rate of 112 miles an hour, 

 and for the space of five minutes at 123 miles. Before this awful 

 blast nothing could stand, and houses of wood and stone went down 

 like packs of cards. 



The centre of the storm appears to have passed directly over the 

 ill-fated town, so that its force may have been even greater than that 

 registered at the observatory 8 miles away. The whole face of the 

 country was altered, the mountains alone remaining unchanged, and 

 the familiar old Peter-Botte reared its head above the sky-line, as we 

 steamed into the harbour on the 29th June. A good idea of the 

 force of the wind may be obtained by comparing it with the speed of 

 an express train travelling at the rate of GO miles an hour. Anyone 

 putting his head out of the carriage on such an occasion can fully 

 appreciate the pressure of the wind at nearly double that speed. 



A curious feature about this hurricane seems to have been that 

 its force was greatest near the earth, and the higher one went the less 

 was the destruction. Thus at Curepipe, in the centre of the island, 

 some 1,500 feet above the sea level, the damage done was com- 

 paratively slight, and it is probable that on the tops of the highest 

 mountains the wind might have been no more than a strong gale. 



As to the cause of these hurricanes, so disastrous in their effects, 

 and which may be said to be almost peculiar to Mauritius, it is not 

 easy to determine. In the present case, neither Reunion or Rodriguez 

 felt anything of the storm, although situated but 100 and 340 miles 

 respectively from Mauritius. 



Professor Meldrum, of the Royal Observatory, Mauritius, has made 

 the question his especial study, and his plans showing the paths of 

 these cyclones, during the last 50 years, are of great interest. 



From a glance at Dr. Meldrum's chart it appears that these 

 hurricanes have their rise in a spot, roughly speaking, between the 



