HURRICANE, a general name for any violent storm of wind; but which is commonly applied to those storms which happen in the warmer climates, and which greatly exceed the most violent storms known in this country. The following description of them is given in the Account of the European settlements in America: "It is in the rainy season, principally in the month of August, more rarely in July and September, that they are assaulted by hurricanes, the most terrible calamity to which they are subject from the climate. This destroys, at one stroke, the labour of many years, and frustrates the most exalted hopes of the planter; and often just at the moment when he thinks himself out of the reach of fortune. It is a sudden and violent storm of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning; attended with a furious swelling of the sea, and sometimes with an earthquake; in short, with every
circumstance which the elements can assemble that is terrible and destructive.
"First, they see, as a prelude to the ensuing havoc, whole fields of sugar-canes whirled into the air, and scattered over the face of the country. The strongest trees of the forest are torn up by the roots, and driven about like stubble. Their wind-mills are swept away in a moment. Their works, their fixtures, the ponderous copper-boilers and stills, of several hundred weight, are wrenched from the ground, and battered to pieces. Their houses are no protection: the roofs are torn off at one blast, whilst the rain, which in an hour rises five feet, rushes in upon them with an irresistible violence.
"There are signs, which the Indians of these islands taught our planters, by which they can prognosticate the approach of a hurricane. It comes on either in the quarters, or at the full or change of the moon. If it will come on at the full moon, you being at the change, observe these signs. That day you will see the sky very turbulent. You will observe the sun more red than at other times. You will perceive a dead calm, and the hills clear of all those clouds and mists which usually hover about them. In the clefts of the earth, and in the wells, you will hear a hollow rumbling sound, like the rushing of a great wind. At night the stars seem much larger than usual, and surrounded with a sort of burs. The north-west sky has a black and menacing look; and the sea emits a strong smell, and rises into vast waves, often without any wind. The wind itself now forsakes its usual steady easterly stream, and shifts about to the west; from whence it sometimes blows, with intermissions, violently and irregularly, for about two hours at a time. You have the same signs at the full of the moon. The moon itself is surrounded with a great bur, and sometimes the sun has the same appearance."
Hurricanes produce a most dangerous agitation in the sea, where the waves break and dash against each other with astonishing fury. During their continuance, the vessels which were anchored in the roads frequently cut their cables and put to sea, where they drive at the mercy of the winds and waves, after having struck their yards and top-masts. These destructive phenomena are now thought to arise from electricity, though the manner in which it acts in this case is by no means known. It seems probable, indeed, that not only hurricanes, but even the most gentle gales of wind, are produced by the action of the electric fluid; for which see the articles WIND, WHIRLWIND, &c.