1845.] Fourteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India. 907 



2nd,) close to the coast of Ceylon, did not certainly much exceed 120 or 

 130 miles. 



On the 30th, we have the Caledonia in the centre, which we must 

 therefore place at her position for this day. It is curious to remark 

 that though the vortex was certainly moving on at the rate of 5.9 miles 

 per hour, as we know from the time when it was crossed by the Hindoos- 

 tan, yet the Caledonia seems to have lain from 11 a.m. to 6 p. m. in 

 the calm ! so that either she was carried along with the centre ? or the 

 calm space was from thirty to forty miles in diameter, and she was by the 

 baffling SW. and Southerly winds carried round and round in it ?* 

 It will be seen that while the longitude was found to agree with 

 the account, it was the latitude which differed fifty miles from the obser- 

 vations when obtained. If the ship had been carried along by the 

 vortex for the seven hours, this must have been detected by the error in 

 longitude. It would be a curious fact to find a storm of not more than 

 100 miles in diameter with a calm space of thirty miles ! so as to make 

 the zone of hurricane surrounding it only thirty-five miles in breadth. 

 There is some countenance given to the idea that there really was a 

 state of things approaching to this, from the fact that during the- calm 

 interval Capt. Burn, though evidently most attentive to his barome- 

 ter, &c. only calls the sea " a very heavy swell." If the calm centre 

 had been of the usual limited extent he would certainly have had some- 

 what of the dangerous confused pyramidal sea so often adverted to, 

 and so well known to every sailor who has been through a China Sea 

 Tyfoon,f that he never afterwards forgets to name it. The extent of the 

 calm also accounts for the little sea found by the John Wickliffe. If 

 these conjectures be correct, we have here a new class of circular 

 storms which we might call Zonal, or Annulars, storms. And I venture 

 to propose a name for them so early, merely for the purpose of calling 

 attention to this singular peculiarity. The note in my Thirteenth 

 Memoir, at p. 716, where Mr. Rechendorf describes the dust whirlwinds 

 as a mere wall or zone of dust, will readily occur to those who have 

 followed the subject. Mr. Thorn speaking of the great storms of the 



* Though these ought simply to have carried her to the Northern side of the calm 

 centre : Northerly and even variable winds are not spoken ef ; perhaps an omission ? for 

 the log is seldom correctly kept in such weather. 



t The Caledonia is a Bombay and China trader of 1000 tons, and Captain Burn, I 

 have no doubt, has been in more than one Tyfoon. 



