790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nal of Science (vol. lxxiv), says : " The honor of having established 

 on satisfactory evidence the rotary and progressive character of 

 ocean storms, and determining their modes of action and laws, 

 it is due alike to the memory of the departed and the credit of 

 our country to claim for William C. Redfield." 



Redfield was a Connecticut man, born at Middletown in 1789. 

 He was a naval engineer, and, besides his valuable contributions to 

 this science, he was much interested in various other branches, and 

 especially in the problem of increasing the speed of steamboats. 

 Olmstead declares him to have been the first man to suggest a 

 great railway system between the Hudson and the Mississippi. 



It was in the year 1821 that Redfield began the study of what 

 he called " Atlantic storms." He was led to it by a casual cir- 

 cumstance, like that which called out Franklin's hint as to the 

 direction of the movement of these storms. And let it especially 

 be noted, as the story of his investigation is told, how clearly that 

 story teaches the value of close and patient study along some 

 single line of facts, until their relations are laid bare and their 

 meaning uncovered. Redfield is an illustration of the value to 

 the world of men who know, not a great many things a little, but 

 a few things a great deal. 



In the year 1821 a severe storm prevailed along the Eastern 

 coast, which for many years was known as the " great September 

 gale." It held that title until September, 1869, when another and 

 more remarkable one occurred, which rather disturbed its claim 

 to the honor. It was a little time after this first storm that Red- 

 field, while making a journey in Massachusetts, was struck by a 

 somewhat curious fact. He noticed that in Massachusetts the 

 trees prostrated by the wind, all lay with their heads to the south- 

 east, showing that the gale there was from the northwest ; but 

 in Connecticut the trees blown down in the same storm lay head 

 to the northwest, showing that the gale had been a southeast one. 

 He ascertained, moreover, that when the wind was blowing south- 

 east in Middletown, his home, it was northwest at a place not 

 seventy miles from there. It was then that the idea flashed 

 across his mind that the gale was a progressive whirlwind. That 

 was a great thought. It was such a flash of perception as came 

 to Newton when he connected the falling apple with the planets 

 in space. It was such an insight into the meaning of a fact as 

 James Watt had when he saw the possibilities of the force that 

 was rattling the lid of the kettle on his mother's fire. The de- 

 velopment of that idea was destined one day to put Redfield in 

 the ranks of the great scientific thinkers of his day. He made 

 this storm the basis of his investigations, following his researches 

 iDto its movements by a careful collection of facts in relation to 

 others like it. For ten years he studied, and examined and com- 



