36 Fifteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. [Jan. 



of wind in hurricanes, by the late Mr. Greenlaw, in which this hurri- 

 cane is described, I should assign to it a track of about from the 

 S. S. E. to the N. N. W., but it may have been half a point more or 

 less one way or the other ; for as usual, it was found, I suppose, impos- 

 sible (and we thought it in those days of no consequence, as most now 

 do) to note with any exactness the wind before the shift ; which I have 

 deduced from her coming up and breaking off. This storm however, 

 occurring as it did within so short a distance of that of the Cleopatra's 

 under consideration, is a full confirmation, if any doubt could exist of 

 the tendency of the tracks to follow a parallel line with the coast, and 

 thus affords us, with the present storm a most valuable guide for the 

 future estimates of tracks in this very frequented sea. 



In reference to what is here said of the tracks and of their apparent 

 tendency to follow the line of the coasts, it would appear that at 

 Bombay also, as well as farther South, they certainly at times do so ; for 

 on the 14th June 1837, a most severe and destructive hurricane was felt 

 at that port, in which the losses in property alone were computed to 

 amount to twenty-five lacs of rupees, some fifteen or sixteen vessels being 

 driven on shore in the harbour and many of them totally wrecked, besides 

 numbers of native craft and boats. It is stated to have been the most 

 severe storm experienced for half a century. It is said that the wind 

 which began to blow " a gale" from the East, veered to S. E , at which 

 point it increased to a " perfect hurricane," which lasted for an hour, 

 and then shifted* to S. S. W., from which quarter it continued to blow 

 " with extreme violence" during the greater part of the day till it 

 abated. 



The foregoing is abridged from the newspaper accounts, and is dis- 

 tinctly a hurricane, with the shift from S. E. to S. S. W., which would 

 indicate a track, from S. 12° East to the N. 12° West, and I have so 

 placed it on the Chart. 



I now place in a tabular form the wind and weather experienced by 

 the different vessels in the Cleopatra's hurricane from the 13th to the 

 17th April, so as to enable the reader to see at a glance the winds and 

 weather on any particular day, and shall follow it with the details of the 

 data and considerations from which the track of the storm is laid down 

 on the Chart. 



* This word is always important, for it marks the passage of the centre without a 

 calm interval. 



