350 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



We have thus, from Captain Briard, a good account of this cyclone previous to and at the 

 time of its recurvation. On comparing the several reports with those of the previous great 

 cyclone of July, 1853, and in view of other analogies, I am led to believe that the swell from 

 southeast, reported by the ships on the 2d of October, on the Japan coast, is referable to the 

 action of the right border of the cyclone, while passing westward in the lower latitudes. 



If we add to the observed track of the cyclone the diameter of its area from the places of the 

 earliest and latest observations, respectively, we may consider its known path as extending more 

 than four thousand nautical miles. 



The rate of its advance from the probable position of its center on the 3d to that of the 4th of 

 October I estimate at about seventeen nautical miles per hour ; from the 4th to 5th at ten or 

 twelve miles per hour, and from 7th to 9th at about forty miles per hour. 



The observations made on board the Mississippi furnish the best data for estimating the 

 probable diameter of the cyclone as it passed over the ship. The time thus occupied in the 

 barometrical transit may be reckoned from noon of 5th to about noon of 9th — a period of ninety- 

 six hours. If we allow an average rate of twenty-five miles an hour for the progression at this 

 period, and deduct the corresponding advance of the vessel, it will indicate a diameter of the 

 cyclonic influence of nearly two thousand miles ; but, as the extreme right border of such a 

 cyclone does not commonly increase its latitude in those parallels, we may estimate the extent 

 of its moderate activity on the 7th as equal to about fifteen hundred miles, or perhaps greater. 



The approximate track of the cyclonic axis, as deduced from the observations, will be seen 

 on the chart. 



Since writing the above, I have received from the British Admiralty, through the kindness of 

 Captain A. B. Beecher, the observations made during the period of the cyclone on board her 

 Majesty's ship Winchester, then lying in the roads of Nagasaki, in latitude 32° 44' N., longitude 

 129° 46' E. At this position, situated nearly three hundred miles northwestward from the 

 nearest part of the axis line on the chart, with the great island of Kiusiu intervening, the 

 earliest indications of the cyclone were from midnight of 4th and 5th of October, at which hour 

 the weather was calm, and the barometer 30.05. During the first twelve hours of 5th the 

 barometer fell to 29.88, with wind veering from E.N.E. to N.E.; force 4 to 3, with squally 

 weather. In the afternoon of 5th the wind had veered to north, and the barometer fell to 

 29.80, near which it continued during the night and throughout the 6th, with wind nearly at 

 north, but diminishing ; its force varying from 4 to 2, but with a calm at 8 p. m. of 6th. In 

 the morning of 7th the wind came from N.N.W.; force .3; and at noon the barometer had 

 risen to 29.97 — reaching a maximum of 30.06 in the following night. 



This account shows the general accuracy of the recurvation which has been assigned to the 

 track. It exhibits a cyclonic depression of about one-fourth of an inch in the barometer at 

 Nagasaki, and a moderate exhibition of the cyclonic winds. The phenomena do not differ 

 essentially from those of the corresponding border of cyclones in the United States in the like 

 relative position. 



reindeer's CYCLONE, JULY, 1850. 



The American ship Reindeer was dismasted in a furious hurricane on the 19th of July, 1850, 

 in latitude 18° 30' N., longitude 139° E., about twelve hundred miles from the coast of China. 

 She ran with bare poles under the easterly winds of the cyclone, thus nearing its vortex till the 

 barometer had fallen to 28.85, when the wind veered, to S. S. E. in a perfect blast ; the ship 

 broached to, and the masts soon went overboard. 



