202 National Geographic Magazine. 
tion is, then, to avoid getting into the core, or heart, of the hur- 
ricane. It is evident enough that if the wind blow in a strictly 
SSS 
SSS 
A ship in the heart of a cyclone. From Reid’s “ Law of Storms.” 
circular direction around the center, the bearing or direction 
of the center must be at exactly right angles (eight points) to the 
right (or left) of the direction of the wind. In other words, in 
the Northern Hemisphere (where the direction of rotation is 
against the hands of a watch) the center bears eight points to the 
right of the wind (that is, to the right of the direction from 
which the wind blows) ; in the case of a hurricane off our coast, 
for instance, if the wind be NE. at Hatteras the center would 
bear (according to the 8-point rule) SE. Considering, further, 
that the entire whirl has a progressive motion along a path, or 
track, if an observer at Hatteras find that the NE. wind fresh- 
ens rapidly, without any shift or change of direction, it is equally 
evident that the center of the storm is approaching directly to- 
ward that point. In a similar situation at sea, a shipmaster 
would naturally see that his vessel was in a position of great 
danger: evidently the best thing to do would be to run before 
the wind, thus getting out of the way of the approaching hurri- 
cane. This simple case will explain pretty clearly, I think, how 
rules were at once formulated and adopted, as soon as Redfield 
had proved the approximately circular character of these storms. 
Without going further into this subject, inasmuch as this 8- 
point rule is perhaps the most important of all the rules—indeed, 
all of them follow directly from it,—suppose that subsequent re- 
