Matthew Fontaine Maury, Lieutenant, U.S.N.

“ Now, in getting out from the log-books materials for showing, in every district of the ocean, and for every month, how navigators have found the winds to blow, it has been assumed that, in whatever part of one of these districts a navigator may be when he records the direction of the wind in his log, from that direction the wind was blowing at that time all over that district ”

“ The great disturber of the atmospheric equilibrium is situated among the arid plains of Asia; their influence extends to the China Seas, and about the changes of the monsoons these awful gales are experienced. ”

“ In some districts of the ocean, more than a thousand observations have been discussed for a single month, whereas, with regard to others, not a single record is to be found in any of the numerous log-books at the National Observatory.
559. TYPHOONS. — The China Seas are celebrated for their furious gales of wind, known among seamen as typhoons and white squalls. These seas are included on the plate (VIII.) as within the region of the monsoons of the Indian Ocean. But the monsoons of the China Seas are not five-month monsoons (§ 475) ”