JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



JANUARY, 1849. 



A Seventeenth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India, being Storms 

 of the China Seas from 1842 to 1847, and some of the Northern 

 Pacific Ocean, from 1797. By Henry Piddington, President of 

 Marine Courts of Enquiry, Calcutta. 



Part I. — China Seas. 



[In this paper the word Cyclone is used to express any turning gale or tyfoon.] 



In the sixth of this series of Memoirs, (Journal Vol. XL) I have 

 collected all that could then be obtained relative to the storms of the 

 China Sea from 1780 to 1841, and I have reason to believe that in no 

 one instance, then, had any contradiction been found to the law for the 

 tracks widen was announced as the result of the researches embodied 

 in that paper, to the which, for the China sea, the present is a necessary- 

 supplement. 



This law may be stated in general terms to be that, though varying at 

 different seasons of the year in the Tyfoon months, yet they are always 

 from some point to the Eastward of the meridian, or from between N. b 

 E. and S. b E. to the Westward and North- Westward, having, sometimes, 

 not straight but curving tracks ; and the utility of tracing out, if documents 

 can be obtained, the track of every Cyclone, in this and in every sea, is 

 to ascertain beyond contradiction and controversy if any Cyclone has 

 travelled from any part to the westward of the meridian, and further, to 

 obtain more exact data on which to found our judgment of what the 

 average tracks in each separate month are most likely to be ; for upon 

 the right knowledge of the tracks of the Cyclones, whether deduced 



No. XXV.— New Series. b 



