The storm raged thus violently for two hours, the barometer settling all the while, until it reached 28.64. It then fell suddenly calm. Landsmen have heard of an “ominous” calm, but this calm seemed to us almost like the fiat of death. We knew, at once, that we were in the terrible vortex of a cyclone, from which so few mariners have ever escaped to tell the tale! Nothing else could account for the suddenness of the calm, coupled with the lowness of the barometer. We knew that when the vortex should pass, the gale would be renewed, as suddenly as it had ceased, and with increased fury, and that the frail little Alabama—for indeed she looked frail and small, now, amid the giant seas that were rising in a confused mass around her, and threatening, every moment, to topple on board of her, with an avalanche of water that would bury her a hundred fathoms deep—might be dashed in a thousand pieces in an instant. I pulled out my watch, and noted the time of the occurrence of the calm, and causing one of the cabin-doors to be unclosed, I sent an officer below to look at the barometer. He reported the height already mentioned—28.64. If the reader will cast his eye upon the diagram again—at figure No. 2—he will see where we were at this moment. The Alabama’s head now lies to the south-east—she having “come up” gradually to the wind, as it hauled—and she is in the south-eastern hemisphere of the vortex. The scene was the most remarkable I had ever witnessed. The ship, which had been pressed over, only a moment before, by the fury of the gale as described, had now righted, and the heavy storm staysail, which, notwithstanding its diminutive size, had required two stout tackles to confine it to the deck, was now, for want of wind to keep it steady, jerking these tackles about as though it would snap them in pieces, as the ship rolled to and fro! The aspect of the heavens was appalling. The clouds were writhing and twisting, like so many huge serpents engaged in combat, and hung so low, in the thin air of the vortex, as almost to touch our mast-heads. The best description I can give of the sea, is that of a number of huge watery cones—for the waves seemed now in the diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the vortex to jut up into the sky, and assume a conical shape—that were dancing an infernal reel, played by some necromancer. They were not running in any given direction, there being no longer any wind to drive them, but were jostling each other, like drunken men in a crowd, and threatening, every moment, to topple, one upon the other.

With watch in hand I noticed the passage of the vortex. It was just thirty minutes in passing. The gale had left us, with the wind from the south-west; the ship, the moment she emerged from the vortex, took the wind from the north-west. We could see it coming upon the waters. The disorderly seas were now no longer jostling each other; the infernal reel had ended; the cones had lowered their late rebellious heads, as they felt the renewed pressure of the atmosphere, and were being driven, like so many obedient slaves, before the raging blast. The tops of the waves were literally cut off by the force of the wind, and dashed hundreds of yards, in blinding spray. The wind now struck us “butt and foremost,” throwing the ship over in an instant, as before, and threatening to jerk the little storm-sail from its bolt-ropes. It was impossible to raise one’s head above the rail, and difficult to breathe for a few seconds. We could do nothing but cower under the weather bulwarks, and hold on to the belaying pins, or whatever other objects presented themselves, to prevent being dashed to leeward, or swept overboard. The gale raged, now, precisely as long as it had done before we entered the vortex—two hours—showing how accurately Nature had drawn her circle.

KELLY, PIET & CO. PUBLISHERS LITH BY A. HOEN & CO. BALTO.
[Larger Image]

The Alabama in a cyclone, in the Gulf Stream, on the 16th October, 1862.

At the end of this time, the Alabama found herself in position No. 3. The reader will observe that she is still on the starboard tack, and that from east, she has brought her head around to nearly west. The storm is upon the point of passing away from her. I now again sent an officer below, to inspect the barometer, and he reported 29.70; the instrument having risen a little more than an inch in two hours! This, alone, is evidence of the violence of the storm. During the whole course of the storm, a good deal of rain had fallen. It is the rain which adds such fury to the wind. These storms come to us, as has been said, from the tropics, and the winds, by which they are engendered, are highly charged with vapor. In the course of taking up this vapor from the sea, the winds take up, along with it, a large quantity of latent heat, or heat whose presence is not indicated by the thermometer. As the raging cyclone is moving onward in its path, the winds begin to part with their burden—it begins to rain. The moment the vapor is condensed into rain, the latent heat, which was taken up with the vapor, is liberated, and the consequence is, the formation of a furnace in the sky, as it were, overhanging the raging storm, and travelling along with it. The more rain there falls, the more latent heat there escapes; the more latent heat there escapes, the hotter the furnace becomes; and the hotter the furnace, the more furiously the wind races around the circle, and rushes into the upper air to fill the vacuum, and restore the equilibrium.

In four hours and a half, from the commencement of the gale, the Alabama was left rolling, and tumbling about in the confused sea, which the gale had left behind it, with scarcely wind enough to fill the sails, which, by this time, we had gotten upon her, to keep her steady. Little more remains to be said of the cyclone. If the reader will take a last look at the diagram, he will see how it is, that the wind, which appears to him to change, has not changed in reality. The wind, from first to the last, is travelling around the circle, changing not at all. It is the passage of the circle over the ship—or over the observer upon the land—which causes it apparently to change. The Alabama lay still during the whole gale, not changing her position, perhaps, half a mile. As the circle touched her, she took the wind from S. to S. S. E., and when it had passed over her, she had the wind at north-west. In the intermediate time, the wind had apparently hauled first to one, and then to the other, of all the intermediate points of the compass, and yet it had not changed a hair’s breadth.

The weather did not become fine, for several days after the gale. On the following night, it again became thick and cloudy, and the wind blew very fresh from the south-west. The sea, though it had somewhat subsided, was still very rough, and the night was so dark, that the officer of the deck could not see half the length of the ship in any direction. The south-west wind was a fair wind from the enemy’s ports, to Europe, and we kept a very bright look-out, to prevent ourselves from being run over, by some heavy ship of commerce, hurrying, with lightning speed, before wind and sea.