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



the tracks are not easily laid down very correctly, so that allowance 

 must be made for this imperfection. To say where the unfortunate 

 Golconda perished is of course impossible, for like the Calcutta Thetis^ 

 which was in great danger, she may have foundered after the storm. 

 The probability, however, is, that she was tempted by the Westerly 

 breeze to run on, as the Calcutta Thetis was, and was thus lost by 

 running into the centre of the tyfoon. There have been, even with 

 our limited knowledge and field of research, so many instances of this 

 kind, (See Third Memoir in Journal Asiatic Society, vol. ix, p. 1053) 

 that we are not judging harshly, I think, if we suppose this awful 

 loss to have arisen from another of them. The lesson afforded by this 

 investigation is one which the dullest may read. Of three ships 

 exposed to storms of the same kind, the commander of one, taking 

 due warning, and probabl}'^ well acquainted with the Theory of 

 Storms, heaves to and makes all snug, which is what ought to have 

 been done ; for he was in the South-Western quadrant of a storm travel- 

 ling across and ahead of him. The second, with less w^arning it is true, 

 having apparently no Simpiesometer on board, and tempted by the 

 fair wind, runs on and narrowly escapes foundering ; for as will be 

 seen, he runs along the South-Eastern edge of his storm ; and the third 

 we may easily suppose to have perished through an error of the same 

 kind leading him farther and into the dangerous centre. 



I ought not to omit remarking here, the exact confirmation of the 

 theory, which we find in the report of the London Thetis, when 

 Captain Cass mentions that the ships ahead of him had gales at North 

 veering to Eastward. This is exactly what should occur, and proves to a 

 certainty, that this tyfoon was a rotatory storm. I should mention also, 

 that the storm-circles on the chart are not struck with any reference 

 to the sizes of the vortices, of which we know nothing, but simply 

 to shew the winds at noon and midnight ; and from centres upon the 

 supposed tracks of the tyfoons as far as these can be ascertained by 

 careful projection. 



