JOURNAL 



ASIATIC SOCIETY 



A Thirteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms in the Indian and China 

 Seas; being the Charles Heddle's Hurricane in the Southern Indian 

 Ocean, 22d to 21th February, 1845. By Henry Piddington. With 

 two plates. 



In my Eleventh Memoir (Journal Asiatic Society, Vol. XIV. p. 10,) 

 I briefly announced the highly curious and beautiful experiment, for such 

 in truth it is, which the Brig " Charles Heddle," Captain Finck, had been 

 performing for us, and for the details of which the scientific world are 

 most deeply indebted to him and to Captain Royer, Master Attendant 

 at the Mauritius ; and I have thought them of importance enough to form 

 the subject of a separate Memoir, inasmuch as they will be found, for 

 the Southern Hemisphere at least, to demonstrate beyond the possibility 

 of a cavil, the fact that the great hurricanes are great progressive whirl- 

 winds ; the courses of the " Charles Heddle" during five successive 

 days, admitting of no other explanation ; and distinctly contradicting the 

 notion upheld by Mr. Espy, and other American philosophers, that 

 these storms are composed of numerous winds blowing directly inwards 

 to a common centre, while that centre is moving onwards. 



Another fact also demonstrated by this log, and one scarcely less im- 

 portant, is that of the tremendous " Storm Wave," to which I have so 



No. 166. No. 82. New Series. 5 b 



