378 Twelfth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India. QNo. 161. 



drift much more rapidly to leeward than is supposed, and seamen in 

 these extreme cases would do well to make large allowances, which 

 will at least place them on their guard.* 



The fact that in so narrow a sea as that between the Andamans and 

 the Mergui Coast, which is only five degrees, or 300 miles across from 

 Islands to Islands, a true rotatory storm of such terrific violence and 

 yet of such small extent may arise, is also new and most instruc- 

 tive, and it is equally remarkable to find it making about the average 

 track from ESE. to WNW. and travelling at about the average rate 

 of the slow classes of our hurricanes in the Bay. It would have 

 been of high interest to have ascertained if the storm was formed in 

 the China sea, and crossed over the Peninsula, which is here only 

 sixty miles broad, and so low that there is almost a water communica- 

 tion,t or if any signs of its formation were noted on shore ; but unfor- 

 tunately the British territory terminates at the mouth of the Pak- 

 Chan river, in Lat. 10° 00' North, and the first European residents on 

 the coast are to be found only at Mergui, two and a half degrees to the 

 North of that point. 



Conclusion. 



If we had endeavoured to invent the most instructive lesson we 

 could have devised for shewing the truth and utility of the Law of 

 Storms, we could scarcely have imagined one better calculated for that 

 purpose than this. The reader has only first to satisfy himself that 

 the two storm circles of the 9th and 10th must have been nearly what 

 they appear in the chart, and then to follow with his eye the tracks of 

 the Petite Nancy, Runnymede and Briton, noticing what is said at 



* As to the average rate of motion and track of the storm, we have its centre well 

 marked at noon on the 9th, from which to midnight of the llth-12th are 48 hours, and 

 the distance from the centre of the 9th to the place of the wrecks, is about 184 miles ; or 

 not quite 4 miles per hour, on a course of, from point to point, N. 72° West. It however 

 travelled from the 9th to the 10th not more than 60 miles, and thus did not make three 

 miles per hour on that day. 



f It has been roughly surveyed by Capt. Tremenheere, B.E. who found the greatest 

 elevation to be about 450 feet; Journal Asiatic Society, Vol. XII, p. 520. 



