18-17.] Note to accompany Chart of the Bay of Bengal. 847 



Note to accompany a Chart of the Bay of Bengal, with the average 

 courses of its Hurricanes from a. d. 1800 to 1846. — By Henry 



TlDDINGTON. 



This Chart is the third of a series now printing for a new work on 

 Storms, which it is hoped will be for the Mariner in all parts of the 

 world, what the " Horn Book of Storms" is for the Eastern Seas, from 

 the Cape to China, and I have thought this chart of sufficient general 

 scientific interest to offer copies of it to the Editors of the Journal. 



It may be regarded both in a meteorological and a nautical point of 

 view, and further as a contribution to general science, for to advert first 

 to this last named view, it will not be thought trifling that we are now 

 enabled to say by the researches of Mr. Redfield and Col. Reid for the 

 Atlantic Ocean for 66 years (1/80 to 1846) those of Col. Reid, 

 Mr. Thorn and my own for the Southern Indian Ocean for 35 years 

 (1809 to 1846), my researches for the Bay of Bengal for 46 years, 1800 

 to 1846, and in the China Sea for 66 years, 1780 to 1846, and my 

 researches over all the other portions of the globe wherever I could 

 obtain documents, as the Pacific Ocean, coasts of Australia, &c. no con- 

 tradiction to the great laws which Redfield and Reid have announced 

 has been discovered, and this though every apparent anomaly has been 

 subjected to the closest scrutiny ! The researches too have been carried 

 out to an extent which few are aware of, as both to the various sources 

 referred to and their number. Hence we may look upon this Chart as 

 part of the results of a series of registries of independent experiments 

 recorded without the least concurrence on the part of the registrars,* 

 and this evidence of the clearest and highest order to the truth of a 

 great physical law. 



And this relates to the rotation of Storms, What we have now to 

 pursue for separate seas and oceans, and what is in this chart accDm- 

 plished is, the slow and gradual mapping of their various tracks as 

 completely as it has been done in the West Irdies and for the coasts of 

 North America by Redfield and Reid, and for the Bay of Bengal and 



* The experiment, i. e. the storm, is made for us, but the seaman varies it by the differ- 

 ent manoeuvres he executes to get through it. On shore we sit still m bur houses and 



r nothing - more. 



