ART. IX.-TYPHOONS AND CYCLONES

The Cyclones of the Far East. By the Rev. JosÉ ALGUÉ, S.J., Director of the Philippine Weather Bureau, Manila Observatory. Second (revised) edition. 4to. Manila,

1904.

'INT NTER arma silent leges' is true only in regard to human laws. Those which govern nature's phenomena pay little heed to the actions of men, and call for continuous study and research on the part of those who would learn their meaning. It is thus that for a while we turn aside from listening to the clang of steel and the roar of artillery, to examine the secrets of the elemental war which so frequently devastates the Far East, and, both on shore and afloat, tends to convince us that we are but as pigmies. In this examination we are happily aided by the works of different members of the Society of Jesus, and especially of the Rev. José Algué, now, and for many years past, the Director of the Observatory of Manila, whose work, written originally in Spanish-from which it was translated into German and thence into English, much to its author's dissatisfaction— is now issued in a corrected form, and gives us a very interesting account of the state of our present knowledge of these dangerous meteors, typhoons, the cyclones of the China Seas. The painstaking researches of Father Algué, made directly by himself during the last fifteen years, and indirectly gathered from the testimony of his predecessor, Father Faura, extend over a period of about thirty years, and enable him to lay before us a careful and elaborate discussion of his subject.

And the first question which will occur to the reader is, What is a typhoon? Many derivations of the name have been suggested, but there seems really no doubt that it is the Chinese tai-great, funga wind, tai-fung=great wind, a violent storm; but as a name, it is restricted to a peculiar kind of storm-the more naturally indeed, as, in the opinion of Father Algué at least, no other kind of storm is known in the China Seas, or eastwards in the West Pacific. Typhoons, then, are whirling storms, such as-following the suggestion of Henry Piddington, one of the first to investigate their character in the Bay of Bengal-have been called cyclones; with, however, the important difference that the name 'cyclone,' having been adopted, has come into use for all winds blowing round a district where the barometric pressure is low,

and, to a great degree, irrespective of their force; so that we frequently read in the columns of our morning paper of 'a 'well-developed cyclone,' which may, and commonly doesas far as we are concerned-mean a westerly breeze of very moderate strength, though of course it does occasionally mean a serious gale.

That, however, is not the cyclone of Piddington. What he meant by a cyclone was a most furious storm, such as has been for centuries familiar to residents and voyagers in the West Indies, under the name of hurricane (Spanish, 'huracán '), derived, it is supposed, from the language of the extinct Caribs. But more closely than the cyclones of the Bay of Bengal do the typhoons of the China Seas resemble the hurricanes of the West Indies. The differences, in fact, are very slight, agreeing, it may be confidently asserted, with the topographical differences, which again are comparatively small. This, at least, will come home to anyone who, on a first careless glance at a map, has found himself unable to say whether it was the east coast of Asia or of North America. Few who look further will be inclined to doubt that, whilst typhoons and hurricanes owe their origin to similar meteorological conditions, they owe their close agreement to the resemblance of the coast-lines, and their slight differences to corresponding inaccuracies. We may assume, then, that it is familiarly known that typhoons, hurricanes, and the cyclonic systems of our winter storms have this in common-that the wind blows round a place where the barometer stands low, an area of low pressure,' the rotation being always in a direction contrary to that of the hands of a watch; and that violent as some of the storms of temperate latitudes may be, they are mere child's play in comparison with the truly awful force which obtains in hurricanes or typhoons. They are also very much larger, and, in their full extent, seldom perfectly developed; their exaggerated size finding necessarily some intrusive coastline on which it breaks up. Hurricanes and typhoons may and frequently do attain very large dimensions, and have a gross diameter of hundreds of miles, but are still very much smaller than their overgrown relations of higher latitudes. It would almost seem as if the force which generates these appears weaker by being diffused over a larger area; but even when they are small, as they frequently are, they do

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In corresponding storms of the southern hemisphere, the rotation is in the opposite direction-i.e. with the hands of a watch.

not have the violence of those nearer the line: a violence which, from our first acquaintance with them, has become proverbial, and especially that of the West Indian hurricanes, as being nearer home.

*

The fury of the typhoons of the Far East has been, indeed, equally well known to mariners whom fate calls to those remote longitudes, but it is within comparatively few years that it has been realised by our stay-at-home geographers. Many sensational accounts of their fury, both in the West and East, have been published; but quite recently, Father Froc, S.J., the Director of the Observatory of Zi-ka-wei, near Shanghai, has prefaced his investigation of a typhoon which raged to the north of Formosa by an account of what happened to two ships, one of which, the Russian steamer De Witte,' by foundering, gave her name to the meteor, and the other, the Austrian-Lloyd's steamer Mel'pomene,' whose experience, however fearful at the time to those on board her, have now in reading of them an almost comic effect, as recalling the memory of the gambols of that celebrated gun on the main-deck of a French man-ofwar, as described by Victor Hugo in Quatre-vingt-treize.' The 'De Witte,' a new steamer of 2,000 tons burden, laden with coal, from Moji to Singapore, 'ran into' this typhoon, apparently without warning, on Thursday, August 1, 1901.

'The weather soon became terrific, and the steamer, making no headway, was continually shipping heavy seas, which knocked her railings and deck-fittings all to pieces. On Friday, 2nd, as the ship was trying to put her head to wind, a tremendous wave came on board, which flooded the engine-room and stokehold, and put the fires out, after which the steamer became unmanageable; she gradually filled with water, her cargo shifted, and she took a heavy list to starboard. She was then some fifty miles to the north of Formosa. Three boats were lowered; one was smashed as it was being let into the water, but the other two were successfully lowered and all hands embarked. They stood by the ship all the rest of the day, the night, and part of Saturday, 3rd, until, during the afternoon, the steamer went finally down before their eyes. How they managed to remain in open boats so long in such a sea is a problem I leave to seamen to resolve. A start was then made for the nearest land, when, after three hours' rowing, the shipwrecked men-twenty-four all told-were picked up by the German steamer "Shantung," which took them to Woo-sung.'

In reading this, it is difficult to avoid a suspicion that the captain of the 'De Witte' was neither officer, seaman nor The "De Witte " Typhoon, August 1-6, 1901.' (4to., Zi-ka-wei, 1901.)

navigator, and that the loss of the ship was mainly due to his want of knowledge and intelligence. The same may perhaps be said of the captain of the 'Melpomene,' which sailed from Shanghai, homeward bound, on the afternoon of August 1, with fair weather and a fresh breeze, while the signal of an approaching typhoon was hoisted at the observatory. The next morning she found herself in a high cross sea, waves from south-east and north-east meeting. The swell increased, the appearance of the weather became very threatening, towards evening the glass fell rapidly, the wind strengthened, and the sea, now very rough, broke over the ship from different quarters. Rain fell in torrents, squalls from N.E. and E.N.E. were heavy and frequent, the ship labouring heavily, and quite ungovernable in the very rough sea. The night closed in, in inky blackness; about ten the fore topmast carried away and, together with both fore topsail yards, fell inboard. As they swept the deck, they broke away the steam winch, which took part in the dance, and tore away the fastenings of two spare anchors that were stowed on deck, and now 'joined the wild moving 'mass.' Backwards and forwards, from side to side it drove, till happily the anchors went overboard, but only to hook in some of the rigging which was hanging over the side, where they remained suspended, swaying to and fro as the ship rolled, and pounding her plates, which-from some unexplained cause-were neither pierced nor broken. An attempt was made to cut the anchors loose, but the darkness, the want of rails, the violence of the rolling, and the heavy seas continually breaking over the deck effectually prevented its success. So the ship lay and rolled and suffered till the morning of the 3rd, when the fury of the wind somewhat abated and the sea began to go down. The men were then able to cut loose the anchors, and to clear the wreck; two days afterwards the ship got safely into Hong Kong harbour.

It may perhaps be thought that this account is unduly exaggerated, and that the fate of the De Witte' was in great measure due to the incompetence of her officers and crew, whilst the story of their taking to the boats and-in such circumstances-lying by the ship for twenty-four hours, to watch her sink, can scarcely be accepted in its entirety. Indeed, many ships whose logs are quoted by Father Froc, passing through similar or even more severe weather, did not suffer any serious inconvenience, and still less did those which were somewhat outside the area of its greatest

GEST Dd though ir ar dieren of the famage, and the loss of

Eurir the next

wara weighed at

711 ́ penture at A. MT. 16 100 ST but there were, In real rang as 18 rs de verber (overcast enoty, ma. A are inter of Case isting bors and small gaging pince was son of harbor in de same me has the Glory' and we azized an Amenon solog Tower case the The wind teased in the immoa mi amigal was blowing hard. The sea was art so berry as I had expected it would be in fact a movers wind. The blouse facing boats and coasting jika seemed to ga on v Having been in deck for a long time I went below to get some rest. TA: 255 am of the 4th), I was lying on the deck of my freakin, when I heard a terrifé crash. This turned out to be a part-about five feet in length of the wireless telegraph gaff, which had been struck by lighting, and been broken off. Fortunately, in its fall to the deck is touched to one. This was really the only incident of note daring the typboca. The "Glory" behaved well, and the sea was relatively moderate, notwithstanding the force of the wind. I learnt afterwards that the "De Witte's crew, when their ship sack, saved themselves in open boats. I should have thought this impossible in a typhoon, if I had not seen how well the Chinese fishing boats behaved in it.'

It is most interesting and extremely satisfactory to find that a large and heavy battleship like the 'Glory' behaved so well in such a storm, and there seems absolutely no reason to apprehend that she would have done worse had she been exposed to an even more severe trial. None the less, that trial is one which a sailor would always gladly avoid-in fact, is bound to avoid, so far as is possible. It is therefore incumbent on him to study the nature of these meteors, their prognostics, their manner of moving, and the best way of handling a ship within their influence. Happily all these are points on which a fair degree of accuracy can

The notes in brackets are from the official log.