1888.] occurred at Dacca on A];)ril 7t7i, 1888. 201 



The excellent exhaustive description of the tornado at Dacca which 

 follows this paper is contributed by Dr. A. Crombie, Civil Surgeon of 

 that place. The track of the storm as given by Dr. Crombie shews 

 that the statement of the meteorological observer at Dacca that the storm 

 passed through the compound qf that observatory, which was pubr 

 Jished in the Calcutta Gazette in the Report on the Meteorology of 

 Bengal for the week ending the 13th of April, was incorrect ; and 

 it is clear that the storm track was some little distance from the 

 meteorological observatory. 



The storm in its destructive effects seems to have been strictly 

 confined to a very sharply defined area, and not to have had even an 

 puter circle of very strong winds, for Mr. B. F. Mondy, Professor of 

 Science, Dacca College, writes : — 



" There was nothing of a remarkable nature to indicate its coming. 

 One of the usual not very violent storm g was known to be coming, but 

 nothing more, ^or were there any very violent winds outside of its 

 track. I live on the river side and was in my verandah the whole while, 

 not 100 yards from its track on the river side, the river running here 

 9,bout W. 30° ]Sr., and not a stone's throw from Edward's house (one of 

 those injured though apparently not quite in the track of the storm), 

 which lies N. 20° W. from here, but the wind even at this short distance 

 was by no means strong. Yet while I was in the verandah and watched 

 the approach of the storm from the other side of the river, the whole 

 pjplie tremendous havoc was done just to the N. W. of us." 



The track of the tornado, which is most fully described in Dr, 

 Crombie's paper and is also illustrated by diagrams, appears to have been 

 niainly in an east-south-easterly direction while passing through Dacca, 

 Ibut if Dr. Crombie's surmise is correct that the same tornado after- 

 wards visited the Moonsheegunje District, then its path must have 

 phanged to south after rising from the Sankari Bazar. This may un- 

 cloubtedly have been the case, but there is however nothing impossible 

 in the counter suggestion that the tornado which visited the Moonshee- 

 gunje District was a second one. In America, eleven separate tornadoes 

 within a comparatively small area have been known to occur on a sino-le 

 day, and thus it is quite possible that, with the favorable conditions for 

 the forniation of such storms which must have obtained in the Dacca 

 District on the 7th of April, two or even more of such storms might 

 have originated. The time at which the storm visited the Moonshee- 

 gunje District and the known rate at which the Dacca storm was 

 travelling perhaps favour Dr. Crombie's view. 



It is also desirable in connection with the subject of tornadoes in 

 iPengal to place on record an account of anothej* small storm which 



