THE BRITISH ISLANDS IN NOVEMBER 1838. 47^) 



will be remembered, that it was about two or three in the morning of the 28th, 

 that the storm commenced in the south coast of Ireland, which is distant about 

 1500 miles from Madeira, and about 1000 from Lisbon. 



Assuming that this was one and the same storm which visited all these 

 places, then it travelled about the rate of nineteen miles an hour, which agrees 

 very nearly with the rate of its progressive motion in this country. 



I have shewn, that it is highly probable that the most violent part of this 

 storm lay considerably to the w^est of the British islands : in which case, if it as- 

 sumed a circular form, it must have stretched far across the Atlantic. We find, 

 accordingly, abundant evidence of a very violent storm in those parts of the 

 Atlantic where we would expect such a storm to have been. Without, however, 

 entering into a proof merely of the range or extent of the storm, I shall proceed 

 at once to furnish proofs of its rotatory movement. 



On the 28th November, the John and Mary, when near the Scilly Isles, was 

 dismasted about 5 p. m. by a hurricane from W.SW. On the same day, the 

 George IV., on her voyage from St Michael's, in Lat. 47° 10' and Long. 9°, en- 

 countered the storm, and was laid by it on her beam ends. The wind with her 

 varied from S.SW. to W.SW. On the previous day, a vessel from Cardiff to Malta 

 had, in Lat. 49° and Long. 14°, lost her bowsprit, bulwarks, &c., with a man 

 washed overboard. The position of the vessels just mentioned will be seen, on 

 referring to a map, to have been scarcely beyond the meridian of the British 

 islands. The next case to be mentioned is that of a vessel situated more than 

 half-way across the Atlantic. The schooner Brandon, of Liverpool, from New 

 Orleans to Glasgow, lost both her masts in a tremendous north-west gale, on 28th 

 November, in Lat. 42° 45', and Long. 32° 34' W. 



Now, assuming that the storm which the Brandon encountered, was the one 

 which, on the same day, was raging in the British islands, the Bay of Biscay, 

 and Portugal, we have this most important point established, that, when the 

 wind in this storm was, in Lat. 42° and Long. 32°, blowing NW., — it was at 

 Oporto blowing SW. or W.SW. ; — at Royan, S. ; — at Paris, S.SE. ; — at Greenwich, 

 SE. ; — in Perthshu'e, E. by S. ; — at Coloony, in the north-west of Ireland, " stea- 

 dily from the east ;" — at Limerick, SE. by E. But this is not all ; for, on the 

 28th, 29th, and 30th, the " Great Western" steam-ship happened to be on her 

 passage from New York to England, and, from her log, I extract the following 

 statements.* On the 28th, she was in Lat. 42° 84', and Long. 52° 1'. The wind 

 with her at that place was "westerly," the weather "moderate and cloudy, with 

 heavy swell from N.NET On the 29th she reached Lat. 43° 57', and Long. 

 46° 59'. The entry on her log for that day is, that the wind was " variable and 

 south-westerly ;" and the entry in the weather column is, " light breezes and 

 dark hazy weather, with a heavy N.NE. swelV This heavy N.NE. swell is just 



* Published in the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, 10th December 1838. 

 VOL. XIV. PART II. 4h 



