Seventeenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. [Jan. 



When once the hurricane began it was fruitless to attempt sending men aloft, 

 for they could do no more than with great difficulty prevent themselves from 

 being blown out of the rigging,* but during the \ hour that the centre of the 

 whirlwind was passing, it being a dead calm, the opportunity was seized to 

 secure the boats and get the masts down. 



As soon as the half hour had expired the hurricane again struck us from S. 

 W. and blew violently until 6 a. m. when it gradually subsided. 



The Barometer commenced rising rapidly from the moment the N. E. wind 

 ceased, and continued to rise throughout the S. W. part of it. Three vessels 

 were driven on shore, the barracks at Sin-kea-Mun (East end of Chusan) were 

 blown down, 1 soldier killed and several wounded. Many houses were blown 

 down and unroofed ; crops entirely destroyed and many lives lost both on shore 

 and at sea amongst the Chinese ; trees were torn up by the roots and the whole 

 country devastated. We learned from the old inhabitants of the island and the 

 fishermen, that such a hurricane had not visited Chusan for 11 years, at which 

 time a similar one took place ; they are said to be uncommon." 



In reply to subsequent enquiries, Commander Vyner says : — 



" I have not heard of any vessel meeting the hurricane at sea, nor of its being 

 felt on shore or at sea to the Southward of Chusan ; that it was felt at Woosung 

 is certain, although I am not sure if the calm was felt there, but I think it was. 



I remember perfectly well a vessel arriving at Chusan about two days after 

 the hurricane which was within a hundred miles of the place at the time and 

 felt nothing of it. It would thus appear that the whirlwind was formed in the 

 neighbourhood of Chusan." 



Track D. 

 Cacique's Tyfoon, September 1843. 

 A Canton paper gives the following account of a second Tyfoon fol- 

 lowing close upon the one just described. After briefly relating the 

 particulars of the Chusan Tyfoon of the 1st and 2nd, which agree ex- 

 actly with the foregoing, and adding that in it the Cacique's Barometer 

 fell to 2 8.30, f it continues : — 



" The Cacique sailed from Chusan on the 4th inst., and on the 5th, about 

 100 miles North of Formosa, again encountered a heavy Typhoon commencing 

 with a N. E. gale which continued with a heavy sea from the Eastward until 1 

 p. m., when, as at Chusan, it fell suddenly calm, during which thousands of 



* This was in an English man-of-war, and in a snug anchorage, and it gives us some 

 idea of what the destructive fury of these meteors must be. 



t Newspaper says 27.10, but this, by a subsequent paragraph, appears to be 

 certainly a mispriut. 



