480 MR MILNE ON TWO STORMS WHICH SWEPT OVER 



what we should expect to have been raised in this part of the Atlantic, by a 

 storm rotating from the east round by the north. Such a swell could have been 

 generated only by a N.NE. gale in that part of the Atlantic situated to the N.NE. 

 of the position of the Great Western on the 28th and 29th November. Observe 

 next the entry in her log of 30th December, when she reached Lat. 45° 28', 

 and Long. 41° 59'. " Squally unsettled weather. Strong gales. Heavy snow- 

 squalls. High cross sea." This shews, that the steamer was entering the storm. 

 Does the direction of the wind agree with this view ? Entirely so, — for the wind 

 with the steamer, was now blowing strongly from W.NW. On the 1st December 

 she reached Lat. 46° 8', and Long. 37° 22', at which place a hard gale still blew 

 from W.NW. The entry in her log for that day is, " Wind and sea increasing ; — 

 hard gales; — heavy snow-squalls ; — high irregular sea." On the 2d December, 

 the entry in the wind column is NW.ly, — and in the weather column, " wind de- 

 creasing, fresh gales, hail squalls, confused sea." She had got then to Lat. 47° 27', 

 and Long. 33° 20.' On the following day, the Avind was still north-westerly, but 

 the entry in her log states only •' fresh breezes." On the 4th December, the wind 

 had become south-westerly, so that she had then got entirely out of the storm, 

 which had passed away to the northward. It was only the outskirts of the storm, 

 — its rear-guard circles, that the steamer, fortunately for her, encountered on 

 1st December. It is a strong confirmation of the above statement, that the 

 Sarah Birkett, in Lat. 46°, Long. 22° had the gale severely from NW. on the 1st 

 and 2d December. She was bound for England, and thus sailed for two days in 

 the SE. quadrant of the storm. 



These data, I think, very clearly prove, that, in this storm, the wind was 

 blowing in bands which formed an entire circle, whilst these bands had on the 

 whole a progressive motion towards the north. That the central parts of the 

 storm passed probably within 200 miles west of Cape Clear, is suggested by the 

 circumstance that the brig Thomas Tucker, on the morning of the 28th, encoun- 

 tered the storm about thirty or forty miles west of that Cape, with the wind 

 blowing furiously from the SE. At noon on that da}^, the wind shifted to SW., 

 from which quarter, after a short luU, it shifted to the W.NW., blowing as furious- 

 ly as before. This vessel was wrecked on the Cape.* The Barossa transport, 

 about 200 miles more to the south, encountered the storm on the 27th November. 

 In the morning the wind blew from the SE. ; in the evening it was SW., when 

 she was so damaged that she was forced to put back to England. The conse- 

 quence was, that she sailed with the storm, and continued in its south-west qua- 

 drant for two days, when she got out of it in the English Channel. 



We are entitled, therefore, to conclude, that all the material tacts hitherto 

 collected, strongly support the opinion, that the storm in question was one of 

 those rotating aerial bodies, of a figure more or less circular, which IIeufield and 

 Reid have described. At the same time, it must be confessed, that there are dif- 



* Shipping Gazette of 13th December 1838. 



