METEOROLOGY. : 203 
occur in the torrid zone, particularly in the West Indies, where they produce 
at times appalling devastation. They take place nearly every year, 
beginning generally in the tropical regions, passing, however, out of these, 
and generally sparing the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, which are 
protected by high mountains; this, however, is not always the case, as has 
been generally believed. A peculiarity attending them is that the wind, 
during the continuance of the storm, changes its direction, generally blowing 
from all parts of the compass in succession ; quite frequently, also, during 
the storm there occurs a lull, followed by a change of the wind to the 
opposite direction. Among the most devastating hurricanes of this century 
belongs that of 1809 in the channel of Mozambique, and on the island of 
Bourbon, Mauritius, and Rodrigues, as also that of August, 1837, which 
devastated the coasts of the main land of North America and the Lesser 
Antilles. Pl. 47, figs. 9 and 10, represent their sphere of influence. The 
explanation of these figures will be found in another part of the work. 
Still more severe was the tornado of October 10th, 1780, which destroyed 
the fleet of Lord Rodney and a great number of merchantmen, killed 9,000 
men in Martinique and 6,000 in St. Lucia, and levelled to the ground the 
towns of St. Pierre in Martinique, and Kingston in St. Vincent (fourteen 
only out of six hundred houses being left standing in the latter place). 
There was also a storm at Guadaloupe, in July 25, 1825, in which the wind 
appeared to be luminous ; and the one of August, 1831, which, beginning on the 
16th at Barbadoes, extended within six days over the islands of St. Vincent: 
St. Lucia, Granada, Martinique, Porto Rico, Cuba, and as far as New 
Orleans, destroying at Barbadoes alone ten millions of dollars’ worth of 
property, besides the lives of 2500 men. Many tornadoes extend into the 
United States, particularly the southern portion of it, generally, however, 
losing a great part of their violence. Furthermore, the rainy season in 
the torrid zone, in Africa particularly, is connected with storms which often 
pass into veritable hurricanes. On the west coast of Africa, especially on 
the coast of Sierra Leone, two or three tornadoes form the transition from 
the wet to the dry season; these are most severe when unaccompanied by 
rain, and are then called white tornadoes. Very violent storms also rage 
on the east coast of South Africa, to which the Mauritius is exposed ; the 
most devastating were in the years 1760, 1761, 1766, 1772, 1773, 1786, 
1789, 1818 (when forty ships were torn loose from their anchors and mostly 
shattered to pieces, and many men on the island were destroyed), and 1824. 
The Cape of Good Hope is a dangerous neighborhood, on account of its 
storms, the most fearful of which are those which strike Cape Town. The 
storms on New Holland are also very severe, and during their continuance 
the wind blows from all quarters of the horizon. 
The whirlwinds occurring in the seas of China and Japan, and devastating 
these coasts, are called typhoons. Resembling the hurricanes of the west 
Indies in their rotary motion, and the calm succeeded by the opposite wind, 
they differ in having a less conspicuous rectilineal progression. 
The hot winds form a peculiar class, embracing the samum, the harmattan, 
the chamsin, the sirocco, and the solano. The three first appear to be 
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