'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎5] (232/258)

APPENDIX. B.
5
1852. May 14. A terrific luirricane burst over Calcutta— barometer 29 36 i >—more
severe than any that had been experienced since 3rd June 1842, when the barometer
sunk to 28-278, the lowest ever known in Calcutta, and almost every vessel in
the river, and dvvelhng house on shore, was more or less injured. Dunne: the
gale there were destroyed in Calcutta 2,657 thatched and 526 tiled houses with
40 substantial buildings—eleven persons were killed, and two wounded. On the
8 th August 1842, the barometer at Calcutta fell during a hurricane to 28‘800
M* 1 ? l7 * f sevcre gale experienced at the Cape—barometer fell to 29 40
(1 60), the lowest known since 21st April 1848, when without any change in the
weather being experienced, it sunk to 29 38, the lowest on record at Capl Town
1852. December 16. Very violent at Macao, scarcely felt at Hongkon" from
Canton all along the North Coast of China. 7 b trom
1853. March 26—28. Furious hurricane all over Southern India; some fifty
vessels sunk or wrecked on the Coromandel Coast to tho southward of Madras
1853 October 10 . Hurricane in the China Seas, large steamer dismasted and
narrowly escaped shipwreck betwixt Hongkong and Singapore.
1854. April 10—12. A tornado swept Lower Bengal from W. S. W. to E. N. E
sweeping villages and great trees before it, and destroying it is said 300 people*
1854. April 21—23. A violent hurricane at Rangoon, 25 boats with the Head
Quarters of the 30th M. N. I. wrecked in the Irrawady—the Barracks on shore
unroofed.
1854. May 22—24. Hurricane in the China Seas—the P. and O. Co.’s Steame#
Douro lost her funnel, and was driven ashore a wreck.
1851. September 27. A severe hurricane in the China Seas, 19 N., 117 E.
1854. October 6 . Hurricane south of Ceylon.
1854. November 2 . Hurricane at Bombay—a thousand human beings and
half a million worth of property supposed to have perished in four hours’ time.
APPENDIX B.
Extracts. —Asa great deal of valuable scientific information is occasionally to ba
found scattered about through our local periodicals and newspapers ; which is apt
in a few years to be lost sight of in India, it has been deemed expedient to repub
lish a selection of the most interesting of these in the shape of an Appendix, as
this when carefully indexed, will avoid the risks hitherto suffered from.
A Rainy Day in the Red Sea —and what of it says the general reader ?
“ Why not a rainy day in the Red Sea as well as any where else ?” Wiiy not to
be sure ! This is a question we shall not attempt to answer, only tho event about
to be adverted to is one of the rarest that can be imagined. It must be somewhat
hard for the English, still more so for the Bombay reader, to imagine the existence
of districts where rain so rarely falls that they are set down in the map as rainless
—yet there are many such on tho globe, and one such is the district from tho
borders of Culch southward and westward by tho entrance of the Red Sea, and
so on to the shores of the Mediterranean, including the southern portion of Ara
bia and the north eastern shoulder of Africa. On the 26th and 27th of July 1854,
a sand storm prevailed in the Red Sea betwixt the 18th and 26th parallels, or from
near the Gulf of Suez to within a hundred miles of Gibbel Teer. The air was red
and lurid and heavily loaded with sand, so that the decks, sails, and rigging of the
steamer were thickly covered by it, the nearest land in the direction in which tho
wind was blowing was good seventy miles away. The heat was most oppressive,
the thermometer rising us high as 92. At night there was lightning and thunder
with some showers of ruin, and from the morning of Friday the 28th to the even
ing of Saturday, it rained almost incessantly betwixt tho 13th and 16th parallels,
lor to this space it was confined, How far to the eastward or westward it