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



noon of thai day. The position of the ketch is moreover altogether too 

 uncertain for us to consider her Log of any importance, except as 

 showing that extensive atmospheric disturbances existed as far as the 

 coasts of Ceylon before the commencement of the great hurricane ; and 

 it seems to be, at least in the neighbourhood of coasts and in the 

 Eastern hemisphere, a sort of rule that these violent hurricanes are 

 preceded either by this sort of general disturbance, as at changes of 

 the monsoon, or by long and oppressive calms. 



For the Buckinghamshire on this day, \5th April, we find, as before 

 mentioned, that she had fresh gales from the N. E. b. E, with severe 

 squalls, and her Barometer still high — while the False Rubany, at 210 

 miles to the N. E. of her, close in with the shore, had it calm, with a 

 confused swell only, which by 6 p. m. had changed to blowing strong 

 from the S. E. b. S., with a high sea. By noon this day, therefore, we 

 cannot allow that there are any fair grounds for assuming that the 

 Buckinghamshire 's storm had commenced with her, nor that the East 

 London and Buckinghamshire had any parts of the same storm, for a 

 circle of 1 00 miles only in diameter would have reached Alleppee from 

 the position it must have occupied to give the East London a gale at 

 W. b. S., and it would have required one of 340 miles to have reached 

 the Buckinghamshire. 



It is barely possible, that her N. E. b. E. gales, which had been 

 splitting her (old 1) sails during the night, and the heavy S. E. sea 

 which is noted at 9 p. m. on the 14 th, were the effects of a circular 

 storm, of which the centre must have been to the S. S. E. of her, 

 but not at any great distance, for then it would have reached the East 

 London. The foregoing would place the centre of the vortex for that 

 day a little to the eastward of a line joining the head of the Maldives and 

 Minicoy, and agrees with the report of the commander of the Auckland 

 from the latter island, that the gale was not very severe there, which 

 it would have been if fully formed on this day, for it must then have 

 passed up very close to it. 



On the 16th of April we may fairly assign a position to the centre 

 of the storm, which was now undoubtedly formed, and at noon was with 

 the Buckinghamshire a hard gale from N. E. b. N. with a high sea, 

 veering to North, N. b. W., and W. N. W., and finally to about West 

 at midnight ; while with the Fake Rub any it was a moderate gale 



