The Law of Storms. 201 
officers, even on board naval vessels : they realize that their duty 
is not to originate orders but to execute them, and sooner or later 
they get out of the habit of reflecting upon the action taken to 
avoid a storm or manoeuver in one, not knowing at the time what 
considerations lead to the action that was taken, and not always 
having anything brought forcibly to their attention to indicate 
with certainty whether the action was well-considered or ill-ad- 
vised. Upon finally attaining command themselves they are not, 
therefore, as well posted as they might otherwise have been. I men- 
tion these things to explain the undoubted fact that comparatively 
few masters of vessels are well posted in certain very important 
additions to the old law of storms, as it was discovered by Red- 
field and enforced by Reid, Piddington, Thom, and other early 
writers. In fact, of all the navigators of various nationalities 
who have charge to-day of the commerce of the world, probably 
four-fifths are wholly ignorant of the progress that has been 
made in this direction in the past fifty years. That such is the 
case 18 not, in my opinion, wholly their fault : it is owing to the 
fact that far too little attention has been paid to clear, forcible, 
and convincing explanation; it is the fault of the teachers, no 
less than the scholars,—of meteorologists who talk over the 
heads of their audiences, instead of stating facts and conclusions 
ina way to command attention and respect from the practical 
men who furnish the data, and who deserve some tangible results 
in return for their long years of voluntary observation. 
It is difficult to put this matter very clearly to those who are 
not familiar with the conditions that govern the management of 
a vessel at sea, and I shall only attempt to do so in a very general 
way. It should be understood, first of all, that a hurricane is an 
enormous whirlwind, so large, in fact, that its circular nature 
was generally recognized only about fifty years ago. At the im- 
mediate center of the whirl there is a calm space, from five or 
ten to thirty or forty miles in diameter, generally with blue sky 
and bright sunlight. Within a short distance of this central 
calm the wind blows with frightful violence, and here a vessel is 
driven along in absolute helplessness, enveloped in midnight 
darkness, buried in a flying mass of foam and spray, with every 
sound annihilated by the roar and shrieks of the elements. The 
core of the hurricane, as this region has been called, is small, rel- 
ative to the entire area, and it thus happens that a few miles may 
make all the difference between shipwreck and safety. The ques- 
VOL. II. 14 
