22 Seventeenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. [Jan. 



turned on the 3d before having left the Bay, with loss of her three masts ; Bal- 

 carras and Flecha cleared out on the 2d. They arrived safely at Singapore." 



If we take the shift here to have been from N. N. E. to S. E. this 

 will give us a track of from the E. b. N. to the W. b. S., or it perhaps 

 curved a little more to the southward on its passage, as the entrance to 

 that large Bay would lead it to do, but it might thus become outside a 

 Cyclone travelling from N. E. or N. E. b. E. If we could obtain well 

 authenticated registers of winds in such positions both within and at 

 the bottom of deep bays and gulfs over which Cyclones are travelling, 

 and then accounts of their tracks outside, we should be able to speak 

 of these changes of tracks with more certainty. On shore, valleys and 

 ravines seem certainly, as it were, to lead whirlwinds to prefer the lines 

 of their direction. 



1846. 

 Track J. 

 Tyfoon of the H. C. Steamer Pltjto, June, 1846. 

 This Steamer was bound from Hong Kong to join Rear Admiral 

 Parker's force at Labuan, on the coast of Borneo, when she ran into 

 the Cyclone, in which, as will be seen, she was so nearly foundering. Her 

 log was forwarded to me by the Superintendant H. C. Marine at Cal- 

 cutta, and I have obtained also some other documents enabling me to 

 trace accurately the track of the Cyclone, and to demonstrate very 

 clearly the grievous error which had been committed. I deemed it 

 right to address the Government of India through the Superintendant, 

 pointing out this error, and it has done me the honour to lithograph my 

 letter and chart for the instruction of the officers of the Indian sea-going 

 Steam service. The lesson it affords may be useful in other parts, and 

 as my letter comprises at once the abridged details of the data, and the 

 summary of them, I have preferred printing it nearly at length. The 

 sketch chart on which I have also marked the run of the schooner 

 Mischief the log of which vessel I give at the end, will be seen on the 

 large chart to this memoir. The following is my letter : — 



The Secretary to the Superintendent of Marine, Calcutta. 



S rRj — I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter No. 3805 of 

 18th inst. giving cover to the log of the EL C. Steamer Pluto in the tyfoon 

 experienced by her in the China Sea in June 1846. 



