The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

CAUGHT IN A TYPHOON. 313
if we get safely out of it I am very sure you will not want to see an-
other.
"But as we are in for it," he continued, " we must make the best of
the situation, and hope to go through in safety. Many a strong ship lies
at the bottom of the sea, where she was sent by just such a storm as we are
about to pass through, and many another has barely escaped. I was once
on a ship in the China seas, when the captain told the passengers that it
would be a miracle if we remained half an hour longer afloat. But hardly
had he done speaking when the wind fell, the storm abated, and we were
safe. The typhoon is to these waters wliat the hurricane is to the West
Indies ;
it is liable to blow at any time between April and September, and
is often fearfully destructive.
" The word typhoon comes from the Japanese ' Tai-Fun,' which means
'great wind,' and the meaning is admirably descriptive of the thing itself.
There is no greater wind in the world than a typhoon ; the traditional
wind that would blow the hair off the back of a dog is as nothing to it.
A cyclone is the same sort of thing, and the two terms are interchange-
able; cyclone is the name of European origin, while tA'yjhoon comes from
the Asiatic.
'•'
Tlie typhoon blows in a circle, and may be briefly described as a rapid-
ly revolving wind that has a diameter of from two to five hundred miles.
It is a whirlwind on a large scale, and as furious as it is large. A curious
fact about it is that it has a calm centre, where there is absolutely no wind
at all, and this centre is sometimes forty or fifty miles across. Nearest the
centre the wind has the greatest violence, and the farther you can get
from it, the less severe is the gale. Mariners always try to sail away from
the centre of a typhoon, and I have known a ship to turn at i-ight angles
from her course in order to get as far as possible from the centre of a coming
tempest. There is a great difference of opinion among captains concern-
ing these storms, some declaring that they have been in the middle point
of a typhoon and escaped safely, while others aver that no ship that was
ever built can withstand the fury of a storm centre. But I think the
weight of evidence is in favor of the former rather than the latter, as I
have known captains who liave described their situation in such a way as
to leave not the slightest doubt in my mind of the correctness of their
statements.
" If you have any desire to study the subject fully, I advise you
to get 'Piddington's Law of Storms;' you will find it treated very
fully and intelligently, both from the scientific and the popular point of
view.