386 



Colonel Rcid's JVorl- on S forms 



[ArRii, 



the south-west. It is in a letter to Mr. Alexander Smull, ilaica the \'2{\\ 

 of May, 17G0, and is as follows:— 



** About twenty years an^o, we were to have an eelipse of the moon at 

 Philadelphia, about 9 o'clock ; I inteiuleil to have observed il, but was 

 prevented by a north-east storm, which came on about 7, with thick 

 clouds as usual, that quite obscured the whole hemi.sphere j yet when the 

 post brought us the Boston newspaper, giving us an account of the same 

 storm in those parts, I found the beginning of the eclipse had been well 

 observed there, though Boston is north-east of Philadelphia about 400 

 miles. This puzzleil me, because the storm began so soon with us as to 

 prevent any observation : and, being a north-east storm, I imagined it 

 must have begun rather sooner in places further to the norlh-eastward, 

 than it diil at Philadelphia; but I found that it did not betrin with them 

 uniil near 11 o'clock, so that they hid a good observation of the 

 eclipse. And upon compairing all the other accounts I received from 

 tht^ other colonies, of the time of the beginning of the same storm, and 

 since that, of other storms of the same kind, I found the beginning to 

 be always later the further noth-eastward." 



W hilst introducing the above paragraph, Colonel Capper says, it af- 

 fords us a proof that a current of air in America moved many hundred 

 miles during a north-east storm, probably from the Gulf of Mexico to 

 Boston. Thus, having statcfl his belief tliat hurricanes were whirl- 

 winds, he was upon the point of showing also that they were progres- 

 sive.* 



R'lppl'nirjs in fhe Straits of Malacca. — A disturbance of the surface of 

 the sea of a diflferent kind has been observed in the Straits of Malacca, 

 which is not easily accounted for ; and i shall here insert Horsburgh's 

 description of it, in the hope that it may create inquiry and observation. 



" In the entrance of Malacca Strait, near the Nicobar and Achen 

 Islands, and betwixt them and Junkseylon, there are often very strong 

 ripplings, particularly in the soulh-west monsoon ; these are alarming to 

 persons unacquainted with them, for the broken water makes a great 

 noise when a ship is passing through the ripplings in the night. In 

 most places, ripplings are thought to be produced by strong currents, 

 but here they are frequently seen wh^n there is no perceptible current. 

 Although there is often no perceptible current experienced, so as to 

 produce an error in the course and distance sailed, yet the surface of 

 the water is imp'-lled forward by some undiscovered cause. The rip^' 



• Reid, pp. 263-7. 



