"The cradle of the West Indian Hurricanes is in the North Atlantic, about six to eight degrees north of the equator and from two hundred to a thousand miles east of the West Indies. These hurricanes, when first seen, are quite small but they increase in size and in motion as they come westward. Most of them, when they reach the Lesser Antilles--where Uncle Sam's new islands lie, the Virgin Islands--also increase in whirlwind character, and turn northwestward, skirting the northern edge of Porto Rico. This is the mean track. About seventy-five per cent of them pass over a regular storm trail between Bermuda and Charleston, most of these coming close to the coast and sweeping circularly away from the land at Cape Hatteras. At the latitude of New York, the curve has taken them half way round the circle and they disappear as violent westerly gales, though beginning as easterly hurricanes. "As you will have noticed, nearly all these storms come in the autumn. That is because the cradle of the hurricane is the doldrums, and in August and September, the Atlantic doldrums are at their furthest north. The Chinese typhoons are most frequent in the same months of the year, from the same cause." "And this last one, sir," Tom asked, "the one that blew down my anemometer last week and which smashed up the old windmill, was it just like the hurricane of 1900?" "I think I'll let my nephew tell you about that," was the reply; "he was in the thick of it, and the people of Galveston gave him a medal for bravery in connection with it, so he ought to be the one to speak." "Gee, did you get a medal!" exclaimed Fred. "Do let's have a look at it." The young weather observer shook his head. "I haven't got it with me," he said, a little embarrassed. "But if you chaps want to hear about the Hurricane, I guess, perhaps, I can do that." He smiled. "I don't know that I've anything quite as thrilling as Dr. Cline's drift to sea, but one really astonishing thing did happen. I'll tell you about it." "Tell us the whole thing," said Anton, "how the storm started and when you first got hold of it and what you did, and why they gave you the medals and--oh, everything!" "All right," the young observer answered, and nursing his broken arm with his other hand, he began: "We first heard about the hurricane on the morning of August 10th, where it had been seen between the islands of Barbados and Dominica. A little before ten o'clock that morning, storm warnings were sent to all West Indian stations. It came as a good deal of a surprise to us at Galveston because there had been none of the signs which usually go before a bad tropical disturbance. At two o'clock in the afternoon of that day, notice of the approach of a storm was sent to all Atlantic and Gulf stations of the Weather Bureau and the report was sent out by the wireless naval station at Arlington, Virginia.