Abstract
M. FAYE'S paper on cyclones and waterspouts, of which you have lately published a full abstract, seems very unsatisfactory. The statement in NATURE, vol. xii. p. 401, of the laws of the cyclone's motion is no doubt true, but it is avowedly not original. But the succeeding parts, where the dynamics of the subject are treated of, cannot be sufficient—I think I may say cannot be sound—because they take no account of the very remarkable facts of the geographical distribution of cyclones. If M. Faye's theory were true and complete, cyclones ought to be equally common in all equatorial and tropical regions, except perhaps that they ought to be commonest in the hottest parts. So far is this from being the case, that they are strictly local phenomena. They are formed in the West Indian seas, but not in the South Atlantic; in the Indian Ocean, both north and south of the equator, but much oftener on the eastern than on the western side of India; and, I believe, off the coast of California, but not that of Peru. Their periodicity is equally remarkable. In the West Indian and in the Chinese seas they occur chiefly at the end of summer, but in the Bay of Bengal after the equinoxes.
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MURPHY, J. Faye on the Laws of Storms. Nature 13, 87 (1875). https://doi.org/10.1038/013087c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/013087c0
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