( 342 ) 



On Storms. By Mr William C. Redfield of New York, 

 and Lieutenant-Colonel Reid, Royal Engineers. 



Colonel Capper of the East India Company's service, in a 

 work on Winds and Monsoons, published in the year 1801, 

 states it as his opinion, that hurricanes will be found to be great 

 whirlwinds ; and says, " It would not, perhaps, be a matter of 

 great difficulty to ascertain the situation of a ship in a whirl- 

 wind, by observing the strength or changes of the wind. If 

 the changes are sudden, and the wind violent, in all probability 

 the ship must be near the centre of the vortex of the whirl- 

 wand ; whereas, if the wind blows a great length of time from 

 the same point, and the changes are gradual, it may reasonably 

 be supposed that the ship is near the extremity of it." 



This view of the nature of hurricanes appears to have been 

 lost sight of for a long time, or to have been mentioned only in 

 a very cursory manner, until an American observer, Mr W. C. 

 Redfield, published in the 20th volume of Silliman's well known 

 American Journal of Science and Arts, a valuable memoir, 

 entitled " Remarks on tlie prevailing Storms of the Atlantic 

 coast of North America,''^ in which he maintains (and we be- 

 lieve without any knowledge of Capper's work) that these 

 storms are great whirlwinds. This memoir, inserted in the 

 18th vol. of the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, from its 

 important details, and the general plausibility of the explanation 

 offered, we esteemed a valuable contribution to the natural his- 

 tory of the winds. In the year 1834 we were again gratified by 

 receiving from Mr Redfield a copy of another memoir, entitled 

 " Observations on the Hurricanes and Storms of the West In- 



that for giving a circular outline ; here, also, the crossing of the two mo- 

 tions ought to be attended to ; were that done, there would probably be 

 no use found for oil and emery afterwards. 



On the whole, your Committee beg to recommend this interesting com- 

 munication to the attentive consideration, and favourable notice, of the 

 Society. 



Edward Sang, Convener, 

 Walter Nicol. 



