1842.] A Sixth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India, 683 



7th August. 



8 a.m. Barometer 29.94. WindS.E. cloudy. Compiled from the Canton Register. 



On Wednesday the 5th instant, a tyfoon swept over the city of Canton. 

 It began in the evening and continued throughout the night and the next 

 day, blowing its best about 2 o'clock in the morning. The damage done 

 by the tyfoon at Canton is small, but not so at Kumsingmoon, Macao, and 

 elsewhere on the coast. — Canton Paper. 



The American ship Levant, Captain Dumaresq, which arrived on the 

 7th of August, the day after the gale, came in with royals set, from Gasper 

 Island, in fourteen days, having had light winds all the way up the China 

 sea, and did not feel the tyfoon. This important fact is stated in the Can- 

 ton Register of August 11. 



Extract from a private letter from on board the ship Lady Hayes, which 

 left Macao roads a day or two before the storm, and returned to Kumsing- 

 moon after the gale. 



" Early in the morning of the 5th, we observed indications of bad 

 weather. At 10 a. m. the wind freshened a little from the same quarter, 

 it had been for the last twenty-four hours, viz. North, so we thought it 

 best to turn her head back again to look for shelter, fancying ourselves 

 to be about thirty-five miles off the land. We carried a press of sail until 

 noon, when we found we had too great a distance to run before we could 

 get into shelter, and expecting it would get so thick that we could not see 

 our way ; so we turned her head to sea, and clapped on as much sail as 

 she could stagger under, steering S. E. by E. The wind being then at 

 North, we were desirous of getting as far off the land as possible, expect- 

 ing the wind round to the Eastward, there being a most tremendous swell 

 from that quarter. At 4 p. m. it was blowing in severe gusts, and shipping 

 a good deal of water, and the ship becoming unmanageable. About 8h. 

 30m. the wind began to veer to the west, but continued to blow as hard as ever, 

 till midnight, when it drew round to South, and moderated a little. It 

 continued to blow hard from that quarter until noon of the 6th, when 

 it moderated fast, and we began bending other sails in room of those that 

 were split. When the gale commenced, which we consider it did at 1 p. m. on 

 the 5th, we were about twenty miles East of the Lema ; where we were when 

 it ended, it is hard to say as we saw nothing till the morning of the 7th, when 

 we made Mondego Island. We hardly think we could have had the gale so 

 heavy as those inside, and what is most extraordinary, the wind with 

 them veered to the Eastward round to South ; but with us it veered to 

 the Westward ; for had it veered to Eastward, we should most likely have 

 been driven on shore among the Islands, as we could not have been more 

 than fifty miles off the land (?) at 8 p. m. on the 6th. — Abridged from the 

 Canton Register of August 18. 



On the reduced chart, which is given herewith, the tracks of the Lady 

 Hayes and the Levant are laid down by estimate from the printed accounts. 



