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Henry Piddington (1797–1858) was an English scientist and merchant captain in East India and China who coined the name ''cyclone'' in 1848 for tropical storms, referring to a storm that blew a freighter in circles in Mauritius in February 1845. Little is known of his early life but he sailed on ships and rose to command a ship. In 1820 he settled in Calcutta and took an interest in scientific pursuits. He wrote many scientific papers about geology, botany, mineralogy, and meteorology in the ''Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal''. For a while he was a curator of the Museum of Economic Geology. In 1829 he wrote ''Examination and analysis of some specimens of iron ore from Burdwan'' and ''On the fertilising principles of the inundations of the Hugli'' in the Asiatic Society journal. In 1832, he compiled a list of the plants of economic importance and from 1835 he wrote on a variety of topics including descriptions of fish, reviews of fossil finds in South America and on geology. He sometimes reviewed and translated content published in other journals. In 1833 a cyclone hit Calcutta and Piddington took little interest in it but in 1838 he stumbled on the "Law of Storms" by (then) Lt.-Colonel William Reid and this led him to return back to his sailing experience and take an interest in ship logs. He was assisted by Captain Christopher Biden, the Master Attendant at Madras. He coined the word "cyclone" and wrote a series of works (23 memoirs in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal) on the topic. He noticed that the storms had a calm centre and that the winds around them ran anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. He also held other positions including as a secretary to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society and President of Marine Courts of Enquiry. ==Bibliography== * ''The Horn-book for the Law of Storms for the Indian and China Seas'', 1844 * ''(The Sailor's Horn-book for the Law of Storms )'', 1848 ((third edition 1860 ) (fifth edition )) * ''(An English index to the plants of India )'' 1832 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Henry Piddington」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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