1849.] Seventeenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. 261 



We come now to the calm of midnight 21st, — 22nd, and the subsequent 

 shift to the North, which is evidently that of a Cyclone travelling to the 

 Eastward, and the wind is marked North to Noon of the 22nd, after 

 which it became N. E. and the Barometer having risen to 29.76, we can- 

 not consider this as any part of the Cyclone which no doubt passed off to 

 the East and N. W., or was perhaps exhausted or lifted up, to judge of 

 the comparative short duration of its Western side. 



As this Cyclone, like that of the Plato's, is an especially instructive 

 one, I have placed the track of the ship from Capt. Shire's chart and 

 that of the Cyclone as I have laid it down on the large Chart in a 

 separate compartment, so as to enable the reader to study it with atten- 

 tion. The remarkable track of this Cyclone, as far as it relates to its 

 nearly meridional course, we have an analogous instance of in the 

 Eastern Hemisphere, in that of the Cleopatra as analysed in the 

 Fifteenth of these Memoirs, and in the Western Hemisphere we have 

 the Cyclones of the West Indies coming in from the Atlantic and 

 curving off on the coast of North America, from the Floridas to Boston 

 or Newfoundland, and then going off again into the Atlantic. Hence 

 we must not be surprised that we have now found an instructive instance 

 of this recurving near the Coast of China, though in a lower latitude 

 than we might have expected. There are two or three other matters 

 noticed in Capt. Shire's remarks on these Cyclones, which will deserve 

 attention, and of these the first is the appearance of the atmosphere 

 and land in the China Sea, which was so readily recognised by the resi- 

 dents of Singapore as the precursor of a Tyfoon, and has long been 

 known generally to be so. This note on the appearance of the horizon 

 and the stars is worthy of much attention, for every sailor who is accus- 

 tomed to night observations knows how rare a good horizon is, and that 

 it often requires a keen eye and much practice to enable him to say he 

 can conscientiously depend upon them. 



The peculiar moaning noise to which I have referred in various of 

 these Memoirs, was recognised by Capt. Shire, when in the calm centre 

 of his first Cyclone. We have hitherto only known of it at the approach 

 of the Cyclones, but there is no doubt it exists, and it furnishes thus a 

 good warning sign. 



Captain Shire furnishes us also with a very clear and remarkable 

 example of the case to which I have elsewhere alluded of a ship being 



