The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-10-17
THE STORM N EUROPE.

The storm which began on the English
coast on Wednesday and lasted till yester-
day appears to have been almost unex-
ampled in severity. We who live on the
shore of an ocean that is rightly called Pa
cifc can hardly conceive such an ebullition
Of furious wind. The gale swept every
thing before it, driving ships from Their
mOorings, battling the utmost skill Of nayi-
gators, tearing great stones weighing tons
from their place in piers and strewing the
shores of tie channel with every form OF
wreckage. The tale enables US to under
stand the story of the Eddystone light
house, which, though built with the utmost
skill, was twice destroyed by storms, and
only owes its present safety to the fact that
every stone in the tower is dOyetailed and
interlocked with every other.
From the wide eXpanse of the Equatorial
Atlantic there is steady current of air
flowing eastward, and striking the coast of
the British Islands and France. 1t is the
earth current which offsets the upper cur
rent of cold air from Europe to the hot lati-
tudes in which the Gulf Stream takes its
rise 1t blows ftlully. not steadily like our
west winds. At times it becomes a gale,
and then the Bay of Biscay IS converted
into a boiling caldron, and the British
Channel opens its mouth like a funnel to
receive il. Up that funnel the storm RACES,
gathering strength from the gradually mar
rowing of the diameter of the funnel,
sweeping past the FUrelands and exhausting
itself on the German and Scandinavian
shores On this occasion we hear more
about disasters ct Dover than elsewhere.
But when all the news is in, it will probably
be found that the coast of Cornwall and
| Devonshire have suffered at least severely.
There is no safeguard against such acct
| dents MeteOrology enables observers to
| predict gales for a few hours ahead, but
until there are stations in the oDen sea- con-
neeted with the land by wire, the predictions
| will come too late to be CT much service. A
cable to the Azores or Madeira would pay
| for itself in few years by giving timely
warning of a gale approaching England
| from the Atlantic But no such project is
on foot.
On this coast disastrous storms are rare,
and not much trouble is taken to guard
against them. If ever a great steamer, full
of people, should be driven on shore by a
westerly gale and the passengers lost, II
will be thought worth while to take few
simple precautions against the recurrence OF
| such a catastrophe. All storms when SVrlke
the coast Of California originate at the same
point-a spot out at sea, probably not faI
from so north latitude and 1862 west longi-
tude-say couple or more hundred mile;
south of Oonalaska in the Aleutian chain
They travel from thence nearly due east
and are first felt on the coast in the neigh.
bO1hood of Cape Flattery, whence they
pursue their course south until they eX
haust themselves against the Sierra. 1t /:
thus evident that a signal service steamer
cruising south of Kodiak Island, in the lati
tude of Vancouver, would have early intel
ligence of the approach Of storm, anC
might, by the use of the telegraph, give
warning of its approach a couple of day
before it appeared in our waters. SOm'
day the foreign commerce of San Francisco
will warrant the adoption of this measure
of precauton, though so long as no ship
wrecks occur the project will nottake thu
shape OF matter of urgency.