1851.] A Twentieth Memoir on the Law of Storms. 195 



A Twentieth Memoir on the Law of Storms in the Indian and China 

 Seas, being the April Cyclone of the Bay of Bengal; 23rd to 

 28th April, 1850. — By Henry Piddington, President of Marine 

 Courts. 



(Concluded from page 61.) 



SUMMARY. 



I now state the grounds on which the positions of the centre on the 

 various days and from them the average line of the track has heen laid 

 down. 



On the 22nd April. — "We have no had weather for the ships fairly 

 within the Bay, but the Barque Iron Gem had bad weather in 6° 47' 

 N. ; and 87° 49' East, in which she lost the main piece of her iron 

 rudder by the blow of a sea. The wind was with her at Noon at N. N. 

 W. veering to W. N. W. by the following day, and she was at 210 miles 

 S. W. b. S. of the Cowasjee Family, which ship had only moderate 

 breezes and latterly squally weather from N. b. E. to E. N. E. The 

 Iron Gem, then, may have been on the Western edge of a small Cyclone, 

 but, as it bore E. N. E. of her, the Cowasjee Family would if she had 

 any part of it have had the centre nearer to her, and consequently as 

 bad or worse weather. I am inclined, then, to think that the Iron 

 Gem's gale was for this day an instance of the Westerly equatorial mon- 

 soon reaching very far to the North ; or of the S. W. monsoon of the Bay 

 setting in. 



On the 23rd April. — We have the Nereid, Eneas, Duke of Welling- 

 ton and Atiet Rohoman between 15° and 17° North with light and 

 moderate airs between E. N. E. and North, but with no indications of 

 a coming Cyclone, their Barometers also ranging from 30.00 to 29.85. 

 To the Southward, however, the Cowasjee Family in 11° 45'; and the 

 Iron Gem in 6° 40' had, being now on the same meridian, the first 

 strong N. E. breezes and dark gloomy weather with squalls moderating 

 at 9 p. m.* and increasing again at midnight, and the second a heavy 

 N. W. to N. N. W. gale varying p. m. to W. N. W. with terrific 



* This is apparently the usual instance of an interval of moderate weather which 

 is so frequently experienced at the onset of a Cyclone. 



2 c 2 



