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went up. From then on, no information was, or could beexchanged between the weather station and the observatory.Mr. Claxton acted on his initiative and at exactly 9 am ran upthe black cross, or the No. 9 typhoon signal, which was, froman exchange of later information, the precise moment when thewind hit the colony at a force of 130 miles an hour.In the light of this criticism it is interesting to noteClaxton's comment in his report for 1923 about the suddendrop in co-operation from British ships:... while the number of foreign ships sending weather reportsby radio telegraphy has increased by 17 per cent, the number ofBritish ships has decreased by 30 per cent (compared with theprevious year). This is a serious matter which is engaging theattention of the government.Indeed, two years earlier, Claxton had commented on thedanger of the formation of 'secondary' typhoons in theChina Sea, a dangerous occurrence because of its unpredictability.He noted:The attention of meteorologists is drawn to these three typhoons[during the year]. No indication of the first was shown on theweather map. This Observatory had no knowledge of itsexistence until nearly eight months later, when the log of theAnarnba was received . . . Both of the others absorbed theprimary cyclone and one formed in the southern portion of itwhile the other formed in the north-east portion. They wereevidently analogous to the typhoon which caused so muchdamage to Hong Kong on 18 September 1906. The formationof these secondaries in the China Sea where there are noobserving stations adds to the difficulty of the weather forecasterand emphasises the importance of wireless weather telegramsfrom ships.But these typhoon problems were some years ahead. In 1916Claxton was preoccupied with other problems, includingHong Kong's periodical droughts. Studies were made in aneffort to see whether long-term forecasting could help.However, after studying records of weather patterns inChina, Siberia, India, South Africa and South America in59