65
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17th.-Centre signalled on Formosa gradually filling up-after that, touch was lost with the depression for lack of stations between Formosa and the Coast.
A private letter from the Director of the Observatory at Zicawei 20th September 1906 addressed to the Commander of the French destroyers, says: "I was thinking of you on 15th, "then on 16th thinking at that moment you were sheltered. I was then sending to all "stations on the Coast the following two signals :-
(1) typhoon S of Meiaco Shima.
"(2) typhoon nearing E Formosa.
"These indications of a Typhoon though somewhat vague allowed one to foreshadow "threatening weather for the S of the Formosa Channel. The absence of stations between S "Formosa and Swatow, and also the comparatively small area of the typhoon did not allow me to give more precise information, but I could hardly believe that the depression signalled near Formosa and filling up was not travelling somewhere else.
"L
4
"The Oceanien felt the typhoon but did not go through the centre: she felt one of "the angles, coming from Formosa, according to her observations. She left Hongkong on Monday 17 at 3 p.m. immediately. After leaving she felt an Easterly swell. At 10 p.m. "the sea was tremendous with enormous rain.
"The centre of the typhoon passed to S. of the ship at about 2 a.m. while she was hove "to off Breaker point (about 40 m. SW of Swatow)." (Extract marked H put in).
Examined by Lieut. Butterworth:—
Q.-Have you studied the question of the weather out here?
A.-A little.
Q.-Have you ever known a storm off Meiaco Shima to divert itself down to Hongkong?
A.-Not of my own experience, but I have known of such storms. They are described in the book giving the charts or the typhoon during the different months of the year, published by the Director of Manila Observatory.
Q.-Do you think it necessary to take account of the barometric conditions of 48 hours previously when these have returned to normal?
A. Yes, by the person in charge of the Observatory.
Q. Why should he expect anything on Tuesday when Monday was normal?
—
A.—The abnormal conditions of the glass should have made him more careful of Mon- day's sunset and other peculiar atmospheric conditions.
Q.-I suggest that I saw nothing abnormal in Monday's sunset on board the Tamar. A.-Perhaps you could not see well on the Tamar as the declination of the sun is such just now that the sunset is, I think, screened by the Peak.
M. LIEBERT continues:---
The Manila Observatory published the observations I communicate.
Examined by Sir Henry Berkeley:-
:---
(Marked J.)
Q.-Do you know as a fact whether the information published at Manila was given to Hongkong?
A.-I do not.
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Private notes are available after approval.