896 Fourth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India. [No. 119. 



as will be seen, we have here, of three, two ships which ran into the 

 storms, of which one foundered, and the other was in great danger : 

 while the third by heaving to, in due time and place, escaped all damage ! 



The Golconda^ as my Indian readers well know, was sent from 

 Madras, with the head quarters and a detachment of the 37th Madras 

 Native Infantry on board, to reinforce the expedition in China. 

 Together with her crew, there must have been nearly 400 souls embark- 

 ed in her: she was seen on the 10th September standing out of the 

 Straits of Singapore, by the Calcutta Thetis^ as noted in Captain Roche's 

 reply to my queries, and again in Lat. 13° 44' N. Long. 112° 58' E. 

 by the Thomas King, as Captain Roche also states, since which time 

 she has never been heard of. It is supposed she must have perished 

 in the Tyfoon of the 22nd to 24th September, in which the London 

 Thetis and the Calcutta Thetis both suffered greatly ; the latter being 

 dismasted. 



It may perhaps be necessary to remark here, to those who are not 

 professionally acquainted with the navigation of the China seas, that 

 there are two routes from Singapore to Canton during the S. W. 

 monsoon, the one being along the coast of Cochin China, and the other, 

 the usual track, between the Macclesfield Bank and the Paracels. We 

 are certain, from the Golcondas having been seen on the 18th Sep- 

 tember, that she took the usual route, which was also that pursued 

 by the London and Calcutta Thetis ; and as I shall shew, there seems 

 to be the utmost probability that she ran into, or was overtaken by 

 the centre of one of the hurricanes which those ships met with, in 

 which she foundered. She was, I believe, an old ship ; but her com- 

 mander was a gentleman of much nautical knowledge and experience, 

 though it is possible that, like so many more, he was not fully aware 

 of the advantages derivable from due attention to this valuable class 

 of knowledge. 



As we have obtained the Log of the Cahutta, and a detailed report 

 from the London Thetis, I have first given these. I have then followed 

 them by a comparative table of the winds and weather at noon and 

 midnight of each day ; and finally by a summary, shewing how the 

 evidence goes to prove distinctly enough, that there were two storms 

 travelling, the one to the WNW. and the other to the NNW. as will 

 be seen by a careful comparison of the table, and the outline chart. 



