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up in this locality, as has already been explained. This has probably been the cause of Satanomisaki having acquired so bad a reputation that it has been termed the “Stormy Cape.” This, in reality, however, does not appear to be the case, as the Light-keeper’s returns from that point show that very few gales occur there and that the weather is generally exceedingly fine.
Between Oo-sima and the entrance to the Gulf of Yedo, north-west winds commence about the beginning of November, and continue to blow incessantly till the latter part of March, breaking up about the time of the equinox. They generally blow with considerable force and are strongest about sunrise, moderating towards the afternoon. With these winds the weather is invariably bright and clear, so that even during night the land may be seen from a great distance; but should the direction of the wind change, and should it blow at all freshly from the eastward during this time of the year, thick and bad weather may be usually expected. It will then blow hardest from south-east and south, and will gradually draw to the westward, at the same time moderating and clearing. Gales, throughout the whole of Japan, but more especially in this part of the coast between Oosima and the Gulf of Yedo, are frequently quite local, and it is no uncommon thing to find that a heavy blow has been experienced about Rock Island, when there has been perfectly fine and settled weather at Oo-sima, a distance of only 170 miles.
Typhoons occasionally occur in the neighbourhood of Van Diemen Straits and the South of Japan, during the month of June. They seldom happen in July, August, or September. The first half of October may be considered the worst season for them, and it invariably brings us one or more of these terrific storms; they generally travel along the south coast in a north-easterly direction, or over the same track as the Kino-siwo. Captain Maury in his “Physical Geography of the Sea,” says of the cyclones in the Atlantic, that, “they take a westerly course until they fall in with the Gulf Stream, when they
