892 Eighteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. [Sept. 



indicating that a Cyclone had commenced at the surface of the ocean. 

 As before remarked, it might have been, and probably was, formed or 

 coming up overhead. Towards the close of this day many of the 

 ships began to have indubitable signs of its approach, or indeed I may 

 rather perhaps say of its descent.* 



On the \2th of October. — If we examine the diagram which I have 

 placed with the chart, in which the numbers signify the ships according 

 to the table just given, and the little arrows their winds (though the 

 force of these is not expressed), we shall see that on the N. Eastern 

 quadrant of the Cyclone we have at noon the Enigma (3) and Eagle 

 (4) with "strong gales" and "heavy gales" at E. S. E., while the Teak 

 (2) nearer to the centre but in the same quadrant has " a furious gale 

 with the sea one sheet of foam." On the opposite or S. W. quadrant 

 we have the Barham (7) with thick weather and hard squalls, heaving 

 too at noon, from the conviction that they were within the verge of a 

 Cyclone, and that standing on, though the wind was fair, would pluuge 

 them into the centre ; and the British Sovereign (20) with " a steady 

 heavy gale" just allowing her to set the reefed foresail. She was, as 

 remarked at the close of her log, probably a little farther to the Eastward. 



On the North western and Northern quadrants we have a group of 

 six vessels inward and outward bound, of which the first two, the Ararat 

 (5), and Washington Alston (16), at the same distance from our centre 

 as the Barham and British Sovereign, and both like them with strong 

 and increasing gales.f The four others, Asiatic (10), Edmondsbury 

 (14), Futtle Rozack (19), and Charles Kerr (21), had also heavy 

 weather, and the Cyclone fairly set in with them, both from the fall of 

 their Barometers, the strength of the wind and the unquestionable 

 appearance of the weather. We have unfortunately no record of the 

 weather on the Eastern quadrant. 



We may thus take the diameter of the Cyclone for this day to have 



* Adopting, only for the present, ray own theory of these meteors, that they are 

 formed above and descend as disks to the surface of the ocean, as a more convenient 

 form of expression, and one which seems much more justified by the phenomena of 

 the following day, than the word approach. 



f They have both also the same apparent discrepancies in the directions of their 

 wind -arrows, but this may arise from many causes, as 1. The wind carelessly mark- 

 ed — 2. Ship's position uncertain — 3. Incurving of the wind at the time. 



