Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1876 — The Great Hurricane in British India. [ARTICLE]

The Great Hurricane in British India.

The terrible hurricane which has just desolated three populous islands in the Indian Ocean is probably the most destructive of life of anv on record. Its victims can now only "be numbered by hundreds of thousands, and the latest reports only tell of its wider sweep. The storm occurred on the 31st of October, and first reports put the loss at 5,000 lives. It is likely to reach nearly, if not quite, half a million. Such a disaster is almost beyond the range of conception. A number of people equal to the whole number of soldiers who perished in our late war on both sides, swept into eternity by a single storm! ' The nature of cyclones—or, as they are more properly called when they reach this grand scale, hurricanes—is generally understood. Forming near the""equator, they taove away from it in a northerly or southerly direction at the rate of from ten to fl ft} miles per hour, with a whirlingmotioQ of such terrible force as to sweep everything before them. Moving acrossj the ocean, the pressure upon the water forces a mountainous wave before them, its size and force varying with the amount of Pressure and velocity of the hurricane. n this case the pressure and velocity were such as to drive the wave across the populous islands, inundating the whole country and leaving scarce » living being behind. The hurricanes are often accompanied by terrible storms of rain, as much as ten inches having fallen in the course of one of them. They vary in breadth from ten to 1,000 miles, usually spreading gradually as they move and decreasing in force. A layer of warm moist air In their course, however, often serves to maintain their full force for days.. Before reaching our latitude, however,'they have usually spent their most destructive force. The islands swept by this hurricane belong to British India, and are inhabited mainly by Hindoos, though there are also very many Mohammedan residents. The lands are fertile and produce abundant harvests of riee, opium and other tropical products of value. It is likely that the desolate islands will be again inhabited after a short time, as the danger~of hurricanes is net greater than before, and not greater than in all tropical countrffc— Buffalo Bipreu. —The contractor for the stone work of Horace Greeley'a monument has been arrested for embezzlement. ,