Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 8 - From Memories to Forecasting: Narrating Imperial Storm Science

  • from III - Accessing Nature’s Narratives
  • Edited by Mary S. Morgan, London School of Economics and Political Science, Kim M. Hajek, London School of Economics and Political Science, Dominic J. Berry, London School of Economics and Political Science
  • Book:
    Narrative Science
    Published online:
    16 September 2022
    Print publication:
    06 October 2022, pp 164-184
    • Chapter
      • You have access
      • Open access
    • PDF
    • HTML
    • Export citation

  • Summary

    Throughout the nineteenth century, shipwrecks during tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean resulted in extended legal battles in the Marine Court of Enquiry in Calcutta. This chapter explores how cyclones became an object of scientific curiosity at the intersection of the imperial legal world and marine insurance. It explores the court records, consisting of legal depositions about the wrecks by mariners and insurance agents, ships’ logs with barometric readings, and diaries kept by the captain and pilots, which formed a significant archive for the colonial scientist Henry Piddington (1797–1858), made famous for coining the term ‘cyclone’. Piddington narrativized storm observations by condensing accounts from multiple sources and created a ‘storm card’ to finally develop a theory of tropical cyclones. His storm narratives and the accompanying visualization through the storm card shaped the very object – the cyclone – as a scientific category of investigation, transforming storm memories into a narrative science of forecasting.