1848.] Sixteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. 529 



we have laid down the Maria Somes' position at all correct, were not 

 more then 90 miles apart ! I have thus given the Maria Somes a storm 

 circle of 120 miles in diameter only for this day, marking a small incurv- 

 ing vortex at the centre. 



We have thus the remarkable fact ascertained of three separate hur- 

 ricanes raging together at the same time, of which two certainly were 

 of excessive, and one of them of terrific violence, since it dismasted and 

 nearly destroyed the Maria Somes and dismasted the Loo Choo on 

 the following day, and this too occurs within a space of five or six 

 square degrees, the centres of the two most distinct ones not being 4 

 degrees apart, and all this occurs in the fatal Storm Tract* to which I 

 have so frequently referred and so urgently warned the mariners of our 

 Eastern seas against. 



For the 29th of March, we have now the Orient, which ship in the 

 latter part of the 28th had run 86 ; to the Southward, lying too at noon 

 with the wind still at North, so that the centre of her storm must have 

 been bearing West of her position, which however must be on this day 

 considered as very uncertain, but there is no sort of doubt that it was 

 travelling down with her somewhat as shown in our chart. The Duncan 

 and Grand Dusquesne, 78 miles apart, had, the first with the wind about 

 N. b. W., her "gale continuing without abatement," the second with 

 her storm abating rapidly and the wind about N. N. E. This last wind, 

 as will be seen by the chart does not agree with the Duncan's storm as 

 before, but rather appears (supposing always positions to be tolerably 

 correct, though in truth they are, after a continuance of such weather 

 but approximations) as if the Dusquesne's storm had disappeared, since 

 it was getting fine at noon, or had fallen into the Orient's storm circle, 

 leaving a smaller one for the Duncan. We may suppose it possible that 

 the fearful whirlwind seen by the Duncan, at five a. m. was an effect of 

 this partial coalition between the storms.* 



The Maria Somes on this day, 29th, cut away her mainmast, and 

 seems during the most of the day to have had the hurricane unabated 

 as to violence. Having no wind marked we can only place the centre 

 near to her supposed position, and as the Loo Choo did not begin to feel 



* 5° to 25 S. and 75° to 105 East. 



t This coalition of storms has been distinctly and repeatedly observed in the case 

 of hail-storms. See Quarterly Journal of Science for 1829, pp. 214, 215. Count de Tristan 

 on the Progress of Storms. 



