In Great Britain, a dreadful hurricane, commonly called the great storm, set in at ten at night on the twenty-sixth of November, 1703, and raged violently until seven the next morning. It extended its ravages to every part of the kingdom. In the capital, upward of two thousand stacks of chimneys were blown down. The lead on the tops of several churches was rolled up like skins of parchment. Many houses were leveled with the ground, and by the fall of the ruins, twenty-one persons were killed, and more than two hundred wounded. The ships in the Thames broke from their moorings: four hundred wherries were lost, and many barges sunk, with a great loss of lives. At sea the destruction was still greater: twelve ships of war, with upward of eighteen hundred men on board, were totally lost, together with many merchantmen.
THE MONSOONS.
The setting in of the monsoon, or tropical sea-wind, in the East Indies, is thus described by Forbes in his “Oriental Memoirs.” The scene was at Baroche, where the British army was encamped. “The shades of evening approached as we reached the ground, and just as the encampment was completed, the atmosphere grew suddenly dark, the heat became oppressive, and an unusual stillness presaged the immediate setting in of the monsoon. The whole appearance of nature resembled those solemn preludes to earthquakes and hurricanes in the West Indies, from which the east in general is providentially free. We were allowed very little time for conjecture; in a few minutes the heavy clouds burst over us. I had witnessed seventeen monsoons in India, but this exceeded them all in its awful appearance and dreadful effects. Encamped in a low situation, on the borders of a lake formed to collect the surrounding water, we found ourselves in a few hours in a liquid plain. The tent-pins giving way, in a loose soil, the tents fell down, and left the whole army exposed to the contending elements. It requires a lively imagination to conceive the situation of a hundred thousand human beings of every description, with more than two hundred thousand elephants, camels, horses and oxen, suddenly overwhelmed by this dreadful storm, in a strange country, without any knowledge of high or low ground; the whole being covered by an immense lake, and surrounded by thick darkness, which prevented our distinguishing a single object, except such as the vivid glare of lightning displayed in horrible forms. No language can describe the wreck of a large encampment thus instantaneously destroyed, and covered with water, and this amid the cries of old men and helpless women, terrified by the piercing shrieks of their expiring children, unable to afford them relief. During this dreadful night, more than two hundred persons and three thousand cattle perished, and the morning dawn exhibited a shocking spectacle.”
The south-west monsoon generally sets in very early in certain parts of India. “At Anjengo,” observes the above author, “it commences with great severity, and presents an awful spectacle; the inclement weather continues, with more or less violence, from May to October: during that period, the tempestuous ocean rolls from a black horizon, literally of ‘darkness visible,’ a series of floating mountains heaving under hoary summits, until they approach the shore, when their stupendous accumulations flow in successive surges, and break upon the beach; every ninth wave is observed to be generally more tremendous than the rest, and threatens to overwhelm the settlement. The noise of these billows equals that of the loudest cannon, and, with the thunder and lightning, so frequent in the rainy season, is truly awful. During the tedious monsoon I passed at Anjengo, I often stood upon the trembling sand-bank, to contemplate the solemn scene, and derive comfort from that sublime and omnipotent decree, ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed!’”
WHIRLWINDS AND WATERSPOUTS.
“The dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call
Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun.”
Shakspeare (Troilus and Cressida.)
In number three hundred and two of the Monthly Magazine, Sir Richard Phillips, in describing a waterspout observed by him, points out the connection between those phenomena and hurricanes, and offers a very philosophical explanation of the formation of the former. It happened to him, he observes, on the twenty-seventh of June, 1817, about seven in the evening, to witness the formation, operation and extinction of what is called a waterspout. His attention was drawn to a sudden hurricane which nearly tore up the shrubs and vegetables in the western gardens, and filled the air with leaves and small collections of the recently cut grass. Very dark clouds had collected over the adjacent country, and some stormy rain, accompanied by several strokes of lightning, followed this hurricane of wind. The violence lasted a few minutes, and it was evident that a whirlwind agitated a variety of substances which had been raised into the air. The storm proceeded from west to east, that is, from Hampstead over Kentish-Town, toward Holloway. In about five minutes, in the direction of the latter place, a magnificent projection was visible from the clouds, somewhat like a tunnel, with the smallest part downward. It descended two-thirds of the distance from the clouds toward the earth, and evidently consisted of parts of clouds descending in a vortex, violently agitated like smoke from the chimney of a furnace recently supplied with fuel. It then shortened, and appeared to be drawn up toward the stratum of clouds, and finally drew itself into the cloud; but a small cone, or projecting thread, of varying size and length, continued for ten minutes. At the time, and for half an hour after, a severe storm of rain was visibly falling from the ruins of clouds connected with it, the extent being exactly defined by the breadth of Holloway, Highgate and Hornsey. About two hours after, it was found that one of the heaviest torrents of rain remembered by the inhabitants, had fallen around the foot of Highgate hill; and some persons having seen the projected cloud, an absolute belief existed that a waterspout had burst at the crossing of the new and old roads. On proceeding toward London, various accounts agreeing with the superstition or preconceived notions of the bystanders were given; and at one place it appeared that some haymakers were stacking hay from a wagon which stood between two ricks, and that the same whirlwind which passed over Kentish-Town, had passed over the loaded wagon with an impetus sufficient to carry it about twenty yards from its station, and to put the men on it and on the rick, in fear of their lives. Passing the road, it carried with it a stream of hay, and, nearly unroofing a shed on the other side, filled the air to a great hight with fragments of hay, leaves and boughs of trees, which resembled a vast flight of birds. A family in the vicinity beheld the descending cloud, or waterspout, pass over, and saw its train, which, at the time, they took to be a flight of birds. They afterward beheld the descending cloud draw itself upward, and they and other witnesses described it as a vast mass of smoke working about in agitation; to them it was nearly vertical in a northern direction; and to persons a quarter of a mile north, it was nearly vertical in a southern direction; and all agree that it drew itself up without rain, and was followed near the earth by the train of light bodies. It appeared also, on various testimony, to let itself down in a gradual and hesitating manner, beginning with a sort of knob in the cloud, and then descending lower, and curling and twisting about till it shortened, and gradually drew itself into the cloud.