374 Nineteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. [No. 5. 



can make no use of it, farther than to say that it seems pretty closely 

 to corroborate our estimation of the track ; for from where she is marked 

 in the Chart on the 15th (which is still but an approximate position) 

 she had only to run down with the North Westerly gale which sbe must 

 have had thereabouts, to plunge into and cross the track of the Cyclone 

 in its rear as she evidently did. Her damage and narrow escape from 

 foundering, as well as that of the Sir Howard Douglas, and the narrow 

 escapes of the Polly and Admiral Moorsom from far worse loss than they 

 suffered, are all instances of lamentable error; for they might all have 

 escaped with a close-reefed-topsail breeze by heaving to for six hours, 

 or if in the cases of the Polly and Admiral Moorsom they had thought 

 it right, upon cool calculation, to risk crossing in front, they should 

 have kept to the Westward far enough to maintain their Barometers 

 without any farther fall, and even to raise them a little ; without which 

 their running was decidedly unsafe ; and was indeed at no time worth 

 the risk for the short amount of time and distance which it could 

 have saved. 



Returning to the details of the track : We find that noticing carefully 

 the indications of the weather the Strabane ran up from Noon of the 

 16th to Noon of the 17th on a N°. 30° East course, so as to cross in 

 front of the Cyclone and allow it to pass astern of her.* She 

 had the wind about South at Noon, placing the centre (if the Cy- 

 clone had commenced) due East of her and veering to West and finally 

 to "a furious gale" at N. W. at midnight; so that the Cyclone had 

 passed just astern of the vessel in the interval between Noon and mid- 

 night. 



As before noted we have not the exact run, neither have we the 

 hours at which the winds were certainly at the points marked ; so that 

 we cannot exactly lay down the point at which the Cyclone's track 

 crossed that of the ship, but as her position is carefully given, there is 

 no doubt that, from that of the Polly and Admiral Moorsom the track 



* Which however was done too closely for perfect safety ; a North course or 

 even one to the N. b. W. would have been a safer one, as carrying the ship more 

 rapidly across the line of the trade, which she would have possibly have done so as 

 to run easily to the N. Eastward when the Westerly part of the vortex reached her. 

 In questions like this however, all depends upon the point at which a vessel in a 

 heavy breeze and sea steers best, and what the heave of the sea is. 



