1845.] Twelfth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India. 377 



from the WSW. to SSW. and fine enough to allow her to carry a top. 

 mast studding sail at midnight, while, had any effect of the storm been 

 felt by her at this time, it must have been in Northerly or N. Westerly 

 winds. On the 13th she had the winds from WSW. to SSW. and 

 finally at midnight South, with sharp lightning at 9 p.m. and irregu- 

 lar sea, with a falling barometer about this time, showing that she was 

 now just running into the vortex. 



Her hurricane appears to have been of small extent, or to have been 

 moving rapidly to the WNW. for it lasted with her not more than 

 from 5 a.m. to about 10 p.m., or 17 hours, during five of which, from 

 5 to 10 a.m. when she broached to, she was running into, and with it, 

 and we have no data for tracing it any farther. The circumstance 

 of its being followed by so many days of dead calm is very remark- 

 able, and has not hitherto occurred in any of the storms which we have 

 traced in the Bay of Bengal. We must now go back to the Runny- 

 mede and Briton to trace from their logs and positions so far as we can 

 do so the effect of the storm wave. 



We find that on the 18th, when the ships, though then in the hur- 

 ricane, had not been so long enough to make their positions very uncer- 

 tain they were at 70 miles distance, and about East and West of each 

 other. Taking the mean of this to be an average position, and the two 

 ships as one, since they were both cast on shore at the same place, they 

 will then be at this time, — noon of the 10th, — in Lat. 11° 4' N. Long. 

 95° 38' ; and the spot on which they were wrecked bearing from 

 them about WNW. 150 miles, which represents their drift made good, 

 from noon of the 10th to about lh. 30m. a.m. on the 12th, or in 37i 

 hours. 



Now Capt. Hall of the Briton estimates his drift at not more than 

 four miles per hour, and Capt. Doutty of the Runnymede his at three 

 miles. Their mean drift (as we have taken the mean positions) 

 would then be 3| miles per hour, which for the 37i hours gives a 

 distance of 130 miles, and leaves only 20 miles to be accounted for as 

 the effect of the storm wave, which is therefore quite trifling. 



Its rise on the shore, which must have been immense to throw the 

 ships so high, has already been noted. It would appear that all ships 

 when blown over so far as to lay with their lee gunwales in the water 



3g 



