'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎14] (117/496)

nating in a calm ol two hours, and again rapidly J bursting over the
vessel with all it pristine wrath, from the very opposite point of the
compass, are all so characteristic of revolving gales, and so uniformly
met with at their centres, in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans,
as to constitute one of the most remarkable laws which belong
to their phenomena. It has been truly said, that there is something
in this strange stillness of the atmosphere far more appalling to
the seaman than the overwhelming force of the typhoon that sur
rounds it. The wind ceases ; a noble vessel, shorn of her masts
and left a mere wreck, is tossing on the broken waves, or half buried
under the pyramidal masses of sea raised in mountainous heaps,
not a breath of wind to steady the reeling hulk ; while the barometer
stands fearfully low and tells of another and coming conflict with
the tempest. Off Mauritius, the Exmouth, when in one of those
calms at the middle of a hurricane, after being enveloped in dark
low masses of cloud for several days, found the sun break out for a
few minutes, but the mercury in the tube of the barometer sunk
below the open part of the wooden frame, and till its subsequent rise
the Captain suspected that the glass was broken ; yet in half an
hour more the wind was again blowing with terrific force from the
opposite quarter.
To return, however, to our subject, and examine the state of the
winds and weather at a distance from the centre r in which the
Biickinghamshire was sustaining so much damage, we shall find every
thing tending to show a vast circle of atmosphere in rotation. In
Lat. 8 N., Long. 60 / E., the Zemindar had west winds. At Ceylon
they were S.E. to S.W.; at Madras, S.W.; Bangalore, S.E. ; Calcutta,
South to S.E.; at Deesa, N.E. to S.E.
Nearer to the focus, the Ceylon Island, (No. 6) in Lat. 9° IV N.,
on t e coast had S.W. winds, getting less severe as she dropped be-
t c gale. At Dodabetta, near Ootacamund, the gale was still
owing with a force of ten pounds on the square foot, and veering
‘ ^ U 7- . to S.W. At Cannanore and Sedasghur, the gale
• had got round to the monsoon quarter.” On this day the storm
was moderating on the Neilgherries at S.W., and commencing at
(( 6 gaUm and R utnagherry at N.E. At Mahabuleshwar, “ the sky
(( j 6 a eatci ling appearance, the sun became completely ob
scured, and towards evening a storm set in, the like of which had