20 
POPULAR SCIEx\CE REVIEW. 
away almost everything that is not attached in the most solid 
manner to the earth. It is rarely (perhaps never) absent from 
a great hurricane ; but the amount of destruction it causes is 
dependent on the mode in which it obtains access to the land, 
and the form of the land it comes in contact with. 
Grreat tropical storms are thus not mere accidents : they are 
like most natural phenomena — simple results of certain great 
laws that may be studied and understood. They occur periodi- 
cally ; they are intimately connected with other phenomena with 
which at first they seem to have no relation ; they are preceded 
by certain indications or appearances ; and they are followed by 
certain results. The forces that are in action to produce ordinary 
winds tend from time to time to produce these storms also ; 
and should certain changes take place in the distribution of 
the land near the part of the world where they originate, there can 
be no doubt that corresponding changes would take place in the 
time and path of the tornadoes. Like all those phenomena 
which must be regarded as occasional they excite surprise, and 
when their effects injure human life or property we call them ter- 
rible ; but they are in no sense interruptions to the established 
order of things, and they involve no special interference with 
the ordinary course of nature. In the sense in which all natural . 
events, such as the daily rising and setting of the sun, the 
annual course of the seasons, or the monthly phases of the moon, 
are providential and illustrate the design and intelligence of a 
Creative Power ; so must the hurricane, in its wildest and most 
frightful horrors, be regarded no doubt as indicating the finger 
of Grod. But it is so in no other sense. It is not a special visi- 
tation, in the sense of involving a special exercise of Divine 
will ; for it is one of the modes by which equilibrium is restored 
upon the earth’s surface, and is the result of a very simple 
modification of force essentially belonging to the established 
order of creation. Since the earth has existed there have been 
such storms ; since the land existed in its present position they 
have taken their present course ; and as these events long* 
preceded the advent of the human race, it follows that they are 
neither sent to clear the air of cholera, to sweep away wicked 
men from the earth, nor to act as warnings to the indifferent 
and. careless among the survivors. The human sufferings and 
losses that arise from them may indeed be foreseen, and if des- 
cried may be prevented. Every one interested in navigation 
knows well that the West Indian Islands have always been 
subjected to hurricanes ; that the island and harbour of St. 
Thomas, known to be unhealthy at certain seasons, lie in the 
direct path of the tornadoes — few years passing without some, 
injury from them. But the station possesses certain con- 
veniences which it is to be presumed counterbalance this risk. 
