THE WEST INDIAN HURRICANE 347 



by shipmasters who encountered the hurricane, will furnish data 

 for a later and more exhaustive report. In the meantime reports 

 of disasters at sea are being multiplied, and when the history of 

 this hurricane is completed the casualties it caused on land and 

 sea will aggregate hundreds of human lives and millions of dol- 

 lars' worth of property. 



Owing to the special interest taken in Puerto Rico by the people 

 of the United States, and to the fact that this island possessed the 

 only fully equipped and regular reporting station of the Weather 

 Bureau which occupied a position in the path of the hurricane, 

 and near its center, an account in detail of the storm's character- 

 istics will at this time be confined to data contained in instru- 

 mental records and reports rendered by the official in charge of 

 the Weather Bureau office at San Juan. At San Juan the 

 barometer began to fall at 10 p. m. of the 7th, and the lowest 

 recorded reading, 29.23 inches, was reached at 8.30 a. m. of the 

 8th. The wind was variable, with occasional gusts during the 

 night of the 7th-8th, and gradually settled into a gale from the 

 northeast toward the morning of the 8th. The hurricane was at 

 its height at San Juan between 7 and 9 a. m. of the 8th, when 

 the wind velocity was calculated by the Weather Bureau observer 

 at 85 to 90 miles an hour. The observer reports that practically 

 no thunder and lightning attended the storm, only two flashes 

 of lightning, and they were not severe, being observed by him. 

 The rainfall was very heavy, a total of 6.37 inches falling, of 

 which 4.18 inches fell from noon to 8 p. m. of the 8th. Ponce 

 and the port of Ponce on the south coast were wrecked, with a 

 loss of about two hundred lives and an aggregate property loss 

 of at least $500,000. The estimated damage to property through- 

 out the island is in the millions of dollars. Dwellings were 

 destroyed and crops were ruined and the main body of the 

 working population will be for a time dependent on the United 

 States, their home government, for the necessities of life. 



In conclusion, it seems proper to refer to the action taken by 

 the United States Weather Bureau in giving warning along the 

 line of its advance of the approach of the hurricane center. Im- 

 mediately upon the receipt of the morning reports of August 7, 

 when the storm was central east of Dominica, the central office 

 of the Weather Bureau at Washington ordered, through Habana, 

 Cuba, hurricane signals from Dominica to Puerto Rico, and the 

 signals were carried to Santo Domingo the afternoon of the 7th. 

 Messages containing information regarding the position and prob- 



