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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
instance of a West Indian hurricane or China Sea typhoon, a 
sufficiency of evidence to convince any unprejudiced investi- 
gator as to what was the true path of the air in the storm. To 
show this path beyond the possibility of doubt, we require a 
considerable number ' of simultaneous observations taken on 
different sides of the storm centre. These, however, were not 
forthcoming in the case of a single storm described by Kedfield, 
Eeid, or Piddington, so that the authority of the founders of the 
law of storms cannot be cited as decisive of the question. 
This suggestion of spiral motion must of course modify the 
simple rule for a ship scudding, of looking in the wind’s eye, and 
taking eight points on the starboard or port side for the storm 
centre, and indicates the probability that the true position of that 
spot will be at least two or three points ahead of the bearing given 
by that rule, so that the ship, if scudding, may be gradually 
approaching the most dangerous part of the storm. 
The recent investigations of Mr. Meldrum which have been 
thoroughly confirmed by Captain Toynbee’s examination of the 
Nova Scotia storm of August 24, 1873, lead to the suspicion, 
not to use a stronger word, that these cyclonic storms are not 
symmetrical at all, and that at some parts of the system the 
wind blows directly towards the centre, so that for a ship in such 
a situation, and scudding before the wind, the centre would lie 
right ahead. 
This is a subject which requires most careful study, in order 
to see whether or not the time-honoured rules for handling ships 
in rotating storms require modification. 
I shall now leave the subject of the air motion, and proceed 
to describe the phenomena of a cyclonic disturbance when it 
passes over us. In the first place, very few of them, in these 
latitudes, exhibit much approach to a circular shape, as regards 
the course of the inner isobars, and we may say that none of 
them develop equal violence in all segments. The reason of 
these differences in the force of the wind is to be found in the 
distribution of pressure in the vicinity of the storm area, for if 
on any side of that area there exists a region of high barometer 
readings, on that side steep gradients will be produced, and of 
course proportionably great violence of the wind. The actual 
weather phenomena of a typical cyclonic disturbance, if plotted 
on a diagram, show very clearly how cloud and rain pre- 
vail over the whole front of the system, and how in the rear, 
where the wind is north-westerly, the sky clears up. There is 
one fact worth remembering about these storms, and that is, 
that just before the sky clears a very smart squall of rain fre- 
quently comes on ; so that we get this practical hint, if during 
a westerly gale we find the rain becoming exceptionally heavy 
we may look for the weather speedily to clear up. 
