Causes of Storms and Shipwrecks—whether influenced by local circumstances.—

The most obvious cause of shipwreck, according to the language of seamen, is a heavy gale of wind with a lee shore.

Though the tides are produced by the joint influence of the sun and moon, the stormy waves depend wholly on winds of the higher order. Air possesses not only a chemical but mechanical attraction for water, superior to that which obtains between the component parts of the latter. When air, therefore, rapidly sweeps along the surface of water, it forcibly seizes the upper stratum, and raises it aloft in a surprizing manner, until the water, by its superior gravity, suddenly recovers its level. This powerful action and reaction between the contending elements constitutes a sea storm, which, according to its violence, raises the billows from twelve to twenty feet, sometimes to a much greater altitude, as in tornadoes and hurricanes, when the sea (as the sailors express it) runs mountains high.

Now, hurricanes may proceed from local rarefaction, or whatever suddenly disturbs the equilibrium of the atmosphere, but principally from an accumulation of the electrical fluid, which has a powerful tendency towards pointed or angular bodies to restore the balance. Hence, perhaps, it is, that lofty promontories, high cliffs, and rocky projecting shores, are so often infested with violent storms, while the main sea remains calm and unruffled. In such situations, the effects of the warring elements are often dreadful, and the disasters produced amongst the neighbouring vessels truly deplorable.

Of a tempest at sea, Thompson gives the following sublime and picturesque description:

“Then comes the Father of the Tempest forth
Wrapt in black glooms——
Lash’d into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o’er a thousand raging waves to burn;
Mean time, the mountain billows to the clouds
In direful tumult swell’d—surge after surge,
Burst into chaos, with tremendous roar!
       ·       ·       ·       ·       ·
They boil and wheel and foam and thunder thro’
And anchor’d navies from their station drive!”

Along the British and other neighbouring coasts, the equinoctial storms are generally the most formidable. As these are to be expected at their respective seasons, all prudent navigators ought to provide against their periodical return.

In tropical climates, and along the abrupt coasts of the Leeward Islands, the most violent hurricanes prevail between the 25th of July and the latter end of September, the wind blowing from the N. or N. W. in direct opposition to the trade winds.