14 
POPULAK SCIENCE KEVIEW. 
great storm of 1859, which among other fatal accidents was the 
cause of the wreck of the Eoyal Charter off the mouth of the 
Mersey, and strewed our shores with wrecks, will long he remem- 
bered. This storm followed a distinct path through England, 
and in all respects resembled the hurricane of which we have 
just heard. It was less disastrous, because as we leave the 
tropics there are fewer of the causes at work that give intensity 
to atmospheric disturbances ; but the course of the hurricane 
was similar, and though not accompanied by earthquake shocks, 
there was an amount of derangement of magnetic equilibrium 
both in the atmosphere and the earth, which proved clearly that 
the phenomena in question are not merely violent local winds, 
but have some peculiar characteristics and are the outward in- 
dications of something going on in the interior of the earth. 
There is reason to suppose that they may even be connected 
with changes and occurrences in open space, or in the sun itself, 
the centre of our system. 
It was in the China Seas and in the Bay of Bengal that storms 
of this kind were first distinguished from ordinary tempests ; and 
it was more especially the study of the storms of the Coromandel 
coast that enabled Colonel James Capper to point out (in 1801) 
that they were invariably whirlwinds or circular storms, while 
to Mr. Eedfield, who succeeded him, we owe the determination 
of the fact that they are not merely circular or confined to one 
spot, but spiral, having a path on the earth as well as a revolu- 
tion round an axis. 
The East Indian hurricanes, of which we have unfortunately 
had a terrible example in the cyclone of the 1st November 
last, have been as frequent, as fatal, and as distinctly traced as 
the West Indian tornadoes. As in the case of the latter, there 
seems to be a singular resemblance between recent and former 
storms. Thus, on the 31st October, 1831, there was a hurricane 
in the Granges, on which occasion 150 miles of country were 
flooded, and 300 villages with 10,000 persons destroyed. After 
36 years the storm recurs almost on the same day. But these 
storms are very frequent, for in the very next year (1832) there 
was another great hurricane, on the 7th October, and six months 
afterwards a third, at the mouth of the Hoogley, when the 
barometer fell inches, or one-twelfth of the whole atmo- 
spheric pressure. In all these cases the nature of the storm, 
the existence of a spiral movement, and the limits of a path, 
were made out. Storm-waves advancing up the great rivers 
occurred on all these occasions, and are especially liable to do 
serious mischief. In the instance recently recorded in the pre- 
sent year, it appears that 30,000 native huts were destroyed, a 
thousand lives lost, and 600 native boats destroyed. The con- 
stant and sudden changes in the direction of the wind, after 
