The morning call., 1893-09-01
THE HURRICANE OF SUNDAY.

The gulf States are familiar with hurri-
canes, but many year has passed since
they had as furious a blow as the one of
Sunday. the full extent of the damage
done is unknown, but it has been ascer-
tanned that number OF vessels have been
wrecked. including the large steamer Civ
OF Savannah. that several sea islands
have been submerged by waves six To ten
feet deep. and that the list of mortality IS
large. Property valued at several millions
appears to have been wiped out
The hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico
are caused by the collision If warm and
moist winds from the equatorial region
with currents of cold air from the north.
The two air currents meet at some dis
tance above the earth, and the temperature
of the warm current, which is surcharged
with yapur. is rapidly lowered. 4 gyration
ensueS which Communicates itself to the
air strata beneath and starts a hurricane
in the line OF least resistance. Precisely
the same causes give rise 10 the cyclones
of the Upper Mississippi Valley. The
heated air current from the Staked Plains
strikes q cold current from Manitoba or
Athabaska and a cyclone ensuss which
cuts a brick house in two and sewers
young tree trunk as if it had been cut off
with an AK. The hurricanes of the gull
invariably come from the south. either
southeast or southwest. Sometimes they
strike inland to the Mississippi Valley,
make their way north to the lakes, and
either perish against the Laurentian range
or follow the Lanrentan Valley TO the sea +;
hut quite as often they adhere to the line
of the coast and break against Nova Scotia
Sable Island and Newfoundland. Their
rate of progression is sometimes as great
as $50 miles an hour.
The stories which are coming to hand of
a wave eight feet high being raised by the
wind and driven over the sea islands of
Georgia and Socih Carolina seem incred-
IDLE. But Sa bine City. in Texas. not many
years ago was drowned by wave which
was said TO be over eight feet in depth,
and in the West Indian Islands even
larger storm waves have been reported.
The traveller to Jamaica used TO be shown
stout tree in the city of Kingston into
which a mahogany plank had been driven
endwise by hurricane with such force
that it could not be pulled out.
The most memorable cyclone ever re-
| ported is the one of October, 1876, in the
Bay of Bengal. The "bore" made its ap-
pearance at midnight on the 3lst in the
several mouths of the Ganges. travelling at
the speed of an express railway train.
/ The tidal wave backed up the river waters
until they overflow wed the country covering
an area of 1000 square miles. Several
| days elapsed before they flowed off. 1t
was reckoned that 1880 people lost their
| lives, and the mouths of the great river
1 were laden fo: weeks with the bodies OF
/ human beings, elephants, tigers, buffalo,
| wild pigs and snakes which had been
| drowned in the jungle.
! 1t is comfortable to reflect that we have
no such startling phenomena on this coast
! Cyclones are not unknown ON the Pacific.
! but they exhibit preference for the western
! portion OF the ocean. In the China Sea
| they are the terror of mariners, though
! they have been studied exhaustively. and
their habits are SO we'll known that ex-
! perienced captains generally manage TO
escape the storm center. What mischief
| they can do TO vessel which cannot get
/ sea room to dodge them the story of the
storm at A pia tells. Our winds here come
/ from the ocean, and by the time they reach
the East they have been so cooled by pass
| Ing over the black current of Japan that
their contact with the winds of the interior
does not necessarily generate a storm GEN.
ter. A common error of superficial reas-
oners is to connect hurricanes and cyclones
with earthquakes. One often hears the
weather described as earthquake weather.
| The zone of seismic distur bance in the
! Caribbean Sea is also the hurricane zone
hence people connect earthquakes with
| aln fo
between the two than there is between a
spring shower and the moldy air of a sub.
cellar.