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XV. Additional Objections to Redfield's Theory of Storms. 



By Robert Hare, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in the 



University of Pennsylvania*. 

 50. TNa communication to the London and Edinburgh Ma- 

 *■ gazine and Journal of Science for December 1841, I 

 endeavoured to point out various errors and inconsistencies in 

 the theory of storms proposed by Mr. Redfield, or in the rea- 

 soning and assumed scientific principles on which that theory had 

 been advanced. Of these errors I will present a brief summary. 



51. I conceive that Mr. Redfield has erred in ascribing 

 atmospheric currents, whether constituting trade winds or 

 storms of any kind, " solely to mechanical gravitation as con- 

 nected with the rotatory and orbitual motion of the earth f." 



52. In ascribing those atmospheric gyrations, of which ac- 

 cording to his hypothesis all storms consist, to " opposing 

 and unequal forces," without specifying the nature or ac- 

 counting for the existence of these forces, although implying 

 that they originate as above mentioned. 



53. In assigning to all fluid matter a tendency to " run into 

 whirls and circuits, when subjected to opposing and unequal 

 forces," when this allegation, if true at all, can only be so in 

 some peculiar cases of such forces. 



54. In alleging all storms to be whirlwinds, and yet repre- 

 senting a M rotative movement in air as the only cause of de- 

 structive winds and tempests," so that a whirl is the only cause 

 of its own violence %. 



55. In averring, in reference to the alleged gyration and 

 vortical force of tornadoes which are by him treated as hurri- 

 canes in miniature, that " all narrow and violent vortices have 

 a spiral involute motion quickening in its gyration as it ap- 

 proaches the centre or axis of the whirl," whereas it must be 

 evident that when gyration in a fluid does not result from a 

 contemporaneous centripetal force, arising from an ascending 

 or descending current at the axis, but on the contrary exists 

 only in consequence of a momentum previously acquired, the 

 consequent velocity in any part of the mass affected, will be 

 less in proportion to its proximity to the axis : also that the 

 only case in which it can increase with its proximity, is where 

 the mass is fluid and it proceeds from some competent cause 

 acting at the axis. 



56. In representing that the upward force of tornadoes 



* Communicated by the Author. Mr. Redfield's papers will be found 

 in Phil. Mag. S. 3. vol.xx. p. 353; vol. xxii. p. 38. 



t See paragraph 60 of this essay. 



J Silliman's Journal, vol. xxi. p. 192 : " Storms and hurricanes consist in 

 the regular gyratory motion or action of a progressive body of atmosphere, 

 which action is the sole cause of the violence which they may exhibit." 



