- Author:
- Hannaford, Ebenezer
- Publication Info:
-
Springfield, O:
The Crowell and Kirkpatrick co,
1900,
pg 19
Text on page 19
MONSOONS AND TYPHOONS
19
The great Malay archipelago, of which the Philippines form the northern spur, lies between the continents of Asia and Australia, the former in the Northern hemisphere, the latter in the Southern. The winter of one hemisphere is the summer of the other, and vice versa. When the air over the interior of Asia becomes summer-heated a movement begins of winter-cooled air toward it from latitudes to the southward; in other words, the southwest monsoon springs up. Six months later it is the interior of Australia that undergoes the summer-heating process; the northeast monsoon is presently established, to
restore the atmospheric equilibrium. The most dangerous storms come betweentimes, at the stage when one tendency is giving place by degrees to the other. The storms of this perioda a period coming twice in every yeara natnrally attract more attention than the longer and milder intervals. They are often called a the monsoons,a and hence the confusion by readers in other climes of monsoon with typhoon. Monsoons have always been an important aid to commerce. Besides, by the rainfall they bring they spread a mantle of verdure and fertility over extensive regions which would otherwise remain arid wastes.
Typhoons never reach as far south as Iloilo, in Panay, and are rare visitants below Luzon. On the latter island, and in the northern part of the China sea, a typhoon is liable to strike almost anywhere, at
any time between May and November, but more especially during July, August and September. The worst time of all is at the breaking of the summer (southwest) monsoon. Typhoons are the precise equivalent of the hurricanes of the West Indies, and are capable of equally frightful havoc. On September 27, 1865, a typhoon in Manila bay drove twenty vessels ashore, and did great damage in the city. The Manila typhoon of October 30, 1875, killed two hundred and fifty persons and destroyed about four thousand houses; that of September 29, 1890, demolished a large part of the mole, or jetty, built to protect the
harbor at the mouth of the Pasig river. These tempests have been known to last ten hours, but their usual duration is much less. The same atmospheric symptoms precede typhoons as precede American tornadoes. Under the Spanish regime there were no signal-service stations in the Philippines, but Jesuit fathers in the observatory at Manila, by running up typhoon signals and cabling warnings to Ilong-Ivong, have saved millions in property and many lives.
In 1882, during a cholera epidemic, a typhoon of not extreme severity visited Manila, carried off the metal roofs of nearly a hundred houses, and killed a few people, including a Chinaman who had his head cut off by a piece of corrugated ironwork that was flying through the air; and, strange to relate, the epidemic ceased within forty-eight hours.
Tagal Families, Manila, in Caromatas
