188 
HAYDEN. 
and Nantucket were due to the storm wave of the hurricane. 
This feature is well described in the following quotation 
from Buchan: “ The most dreadful attendant on tropical 
cyclones is the storm wave, caused by the inflowing winds 
and the low pressure of the center of the storm. When this 
wave is unusually high and is hurled forward on a low-lying 
coast at high water it becomes one of the most destructive 
agents known. The Bakarganj cyclone of October 31,1876, 
was accompanied by a wave which flooded the low grounds 
to the east of the delta of the Ganges to heights varying from 
10 to 45 feet, by which more than 100,000 human beings 
perished.” 
In conclusion, permit me to call your attention to the com¬ 
mercial importance of the Bay of North America, the value 
to navigators and to the inhabitants of its shores and islands 
of taking advantage of every possible method of obtaining 
and circulating early and reliable information of approach¬ 
ing storms, and the admirable facilities that exist for the 
establishment by international co-operation of a weather 
service that would exhibit clear and intelligible storm warn¬ 
ings and concise general statements of existing weather con¬ 
ditions from every prominent light-house and headland. A 
cable is about to be laid from Halifax to Bermuda, which 
will add a very important station, and a line should be ex¬ 
tended to Nassau, which is perhaps an equally important 
point. First and most important of all, however, the enor¬ 
mous value to commerce of a first-order station at Hatteras 
should be recognized, and this might well be considered in 
planning the new light-house on the outer Diamond Shoal. 
The great strategic valuQ of this salient and commanding 
point in our outer line of defenses against Atlantic storms 
has never been fully appreciated. It is too often the case 
that at the first attack of the enemy the wire to Hatteras 
goes down and communication is severed. In connection 
with the new light-house there should be a cable that no 
storm, however severe, could ever interfere with. From a 
commercial point of view, at least, this is the central and 
