586 Researches on the Gale and Hurricane [July, 



is lying with her yard arms in the water, boats and booms washing 

 away, and sails blowing from the yards, those on whom the respon- 

 sibility rests have far other matters to engage their attention than the 

 exact direction of the wind ; and in many vessels, where perhaps the 

 captain and chief mate are the only persons who can take charge of the 

 deck in such weather, the log is rarely marked till the gale ceases, and 

 it is written up perhaps at a still later period. " You must not look 

 for very great exactness in my log, Sir, for to tell the truth, every word 

 of it was written from memory after the gale was over ; myself and the 

 mate had something else besides writing to do while the gale lasted," 

 was literally said to me by one commander ; and no doubt this is ne- 

 cessarily true of many, as those who know the severe fatigue of body, 

 and excessive anxiety of mind which the masters of small vessels 

 must undergo in bad weather will readily allow.* 



2nd. That when the vessel is going fast through the water the dog- 

 vane shews the wind to be further a head than it really is, is well 

 known to all ; when close hauled on a wind, as the vessel lies about six 

 points from it, there is no mistake of any consequence to be made, but 

 with the wind abeam or a point or two abaft it, many officers do not, 

 if they know it, make due allowance for the ship's motion. If the wind 

 appears to be abeam it is put down so, though it is perhaps half a 

 point or more abaft it. The experienced and attentive do not of course 

 fall into these errors ; but how many are there who unite both experi- 

 ence and attention ? Looking at a weather-cock on shore, or merely 

 estimating the direction of the wind, is more liable to be inaccurate ; 

 even to the extent of a point or two. 



3rd. Local circumstances, such as I have alluded to, require no re- 

 mark, particularly when an observer is living in a large town, or 

 has not a very exact idea of his meridian ; which but few have. 



4th. This cause will be more particularly alluded to in Part II of 

 this memoir j at present with reference to one diagram the anomalies 

 about Juggernaut, or as the ships approach the shore, seem quite pro- 

 bably referable to the repulsion of part of the vortex from the high 

 land behind Cuttack ; or to the great current of the regular monsoon 

 gale, blowing up along the Coromandel hills. See Part II. 

 5th. The fifth cause explains itself, as stated. 



* Note.— While this is going to the press I meet in the Nautical Magazine for 

 March 1839, in a valuable paper on a hurricane, " Yesterday I did not put down the 

 latitude and longitude. I calculated it roughly in my own mind, and satisfied myself 

 the Barque was driving clear of the shoals. I was too much occupied, both mentally 

 and corporeally, to enter into minute calculations." — Extract from a letter signed 

 1 Mexicano,' giving an account of a gale off the coast of Mexico. —Nautical Magazine, 

 March, 1839. 



