52
THE TYPHOONS OF SEPTEMBER AND
OCTOBER 1872,
BY
Lt.-Commander NELSON, U. S. War-ship “Idaho,”
Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan,
on the 10th May, 1873.
———o———
Nearly two centuries ago there were accounts published of ships having scudded (run before the wind) in a hurricane for a day or two, and yet found themselves very nearly in the place from which they started when the gale commenced; and of others which in lying to, had the wind veering rapidly and sometimes shifting suddenly to an opposite point of the compass, the shift most generally preceded by a calm, but not always so; and again of other ships which, though not far distant from each other, had the winds blowing furiously in opposite directions and veering differently.
Yet no one appears to have attempted to solve this, at that time, strange problem or to account in any way for the singular phenomenon (that used to puzzle the understanding of the hardy old Tars who having passed successfully through one of these storms escaped with their lives to tell the tale of their experience) until nearly one-third of the present century had passed away.
I would not be understood to say that no one had ever given any attention to the subject—for I propose to cite authorities by whom these storms had been noticed and pronounced to be great whirlwinds—but I mean to assert that no one had ever attempted to solve the problem by
