II 



1855.] A Tiventy -fourth Memoir on the Law of Storms, 425 



Report from Baugundee, a Salt Agency Station, in Lat, 22° 38' N. ; 

 Long. 88° 57' East; about 39 miles E. b. N.from the Flag Staff 

 of Fort William, by F. Crank, Esq. Bengal Salt Agency. 



It will be seen that this Cyclone fortunately* passed up to the East- 

 ward of Calcutta, through the Sunderbunds where it not only tore to 

 pieces every thing in its passage, even to a pucha (brick-and-mortar-built) 

 house, but drove the river-steamers in their sheltered creeks into the 

 jungle. A relation of Mr. Crank's shewed and allowed me to make some 

 extracts from a private letter, and these together with Mr. Crank's very 

 intelligent replies to a letter of queries subsequently addressed to him 

 by me, have enabled me to frame the following very interesting narrative 

 of the passage of the centre of a Cyclone on shore by a person, who was 

 evidently perfectly cool and collected. In this summary, it will be recol- 

 lected that the facts and most of the phrases are Mr. Crank's, and I have 

 indeed sometimes given my own queries to introduce his reply verbatim. 



' For a day or two preceding the gale there was a heavy scud from the 

 Southward with a high temperature of from 90° to 93 in Mr. Crank's 

 rooms to the Westward. The gale set in from the ~N. East on the 14th 

 but by the time it was blowing a gale, it was at about E. JN". East, and 

 when the hurricane was at its height the wind was about two points to the 

 Northward of East. Up to 2h. 30' a. m. of the 15th, it went gradually veer- 

 ing round to the Southward when a sudden lull of about ten minutes dura- 

 tion took place. He was looking from his door to the Westward when he 

 heard the sound of the tempest approaching from the opposite point to that 

 at which it had commenced, or South West. The sound was terrific and 

 it burst with more violence than before on the Western side of the house 

 tearing the thick beams of the verandah out of their places in the wall, 

 and scattering them like straws, whilst the verandah itself covered with 

 a double layer of Syrian or flat tiles, was pierced by it in several places ; 

 holes of 6 or 8 feet in diameter being blown through the roof. He then 

 thought it prudent to place his wife and family in security. The interval 

 of the lull as before said was perhaps ten minutes when the wind shifted 

 suddenly from about E. b. S. or E. S. E. to the S. West, and the hurri- 



* I say fortunately, for we were thus 35 miles to the West of its centre where 

 it evidently was of terrific violence, and had its track been up the Hooghly not a 

 ship then in the river would have escaped. We may also judge in some degree 

 how important to a ship even this short distance from the centre must be, and 

 how it occurs so frequently that one ship is utterly torn to pieces at the centre 

 while another escapes at a very'short distance from it. 



