II. On the origin of a cyclone

Abstract

It has long been an object to the completion of our knowledge of vortical storms to trace out their early history, and to show, by the comparison of a sufficient number of local observations, by what wind-currents the vortex is generated in each storm-region, and by what agency these currents are directed to the spot at which the storm originates. With this object in view, I endeavoured, immediately after the great Calcutta storm of the 1st of November 1867, to obtain, through the assistance of Captain Howe (then officiating as Master Attendant of the Port), the logs of as many ships as possible that had been in the Bay of Bengal or anywhere to the north of the Equator during any part of the last week of October. A similar application was made to the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade and readily granted. The meteorological stations recently established in Bengal, and the observatories of Calcutta and Madras, contributed a number of observations, for the most part fairly trustworthy ; and I was thus placed in possession of data which, although far from sufficient to the complete solution of the problem for the storm in question, have at least enabled me to elucidate its origin to a greater extent than has been accomplished, as far as I am aware, for any previous storm in these seas or elsewhere.