1842.] A Sixth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India. 703 



N. E. Let go sheet anchor, wind veering to the S. E. (time not no- 

 ticed.) At 6 p. m. moderated to a gale from S. E., Barometer rising, 

 and at midnight 29.40. 



%2d July. — From 1 to 6 gale moderate, but still in heavy gusts, 

 at noon fine. 



For this track I take the storm to have really veered from N. W. 

 to S. E., as it did with the Louisa in the more open part of the river, 

 and at Macao we find that the wind was at N. W., when the Ba- 

 rometer had already sunk to 29.32, which is far below the usual 

 average at this season. At Hong Kong also it seems fairly enough to 

 have begun at N. W., though in an enclosed anchorage with much 

 high land to the N. E. of it, and beyond that on the continent of 

 China, we must not look with any great nicety as to the exact 

 point from which the wind may blow, particularly in the first part 

 of a storm. A shift from N. W. to S. E. gives about a N. E. and 

 S. W. track to the storm. 



The bearing and distance of Shih-poo, where the Ruby was lying, from 

 Macao, is about N. 40 or N. 42 E. 688 miles, and we see that a storm 

 was probably passing from the N. E. to S. W., at 50 or 100 miles dis- 

 tance from her anchorage, at noon on the 15th. From noon 15th to noon 

 21st are six days, which time, if these storms were the same, it took to 

 force its way over the high lands intervening between Shih-poo and 

 Macao, which would give it 112 miles in 24 hours, or 4| miles per 

 hour. 



This is assuming it to have pursued a nearly straight course. If the 

 mountain ranges forced it to take a curved track round the Coast, 

 the rate of travelling would then be higher. We have, I think evi- 

 dence enough, (see Third and Fifth Memoirs, Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society, Vol. IX. p. 1049, and Vol. X. No. 121 1842, p. 20,) to shew 

 that considerable retardation does occur, when storms meet with high 

 land on their inland course, and thus there is no improbability in 

 supposing the Ruby's Barometer to have been announcing to them the 

 passage of the Macao storm.* 



* I mention here a practical result, to which 1 may advert in another Memoir. 

 If China was a country under European dominion, a telegraph might, when these 

 storms strike the Eastern Coast, warn those on the Southern, that they were coming, and 

 in India we might often attain the same advantage. Our children may see this done. 



