94 Dr. Hare's Additional Objections to 



gyration. Being under the impression, that in many instances 

 no better answer need be given to Mr. Redfield's opinions than 

 that created in the minds of scientific readers by his own lan- 

 guage, I will here quote his denunciation of the opinions of 

 the meteorological school and of Herschel. 



60. " The grand error into which the whole school of me- 

 teorologists appear to have fallen, consists in ascribing to heat 

 and rarefaction the origin and support of the great atmospheric 

 currents which are found to prevail over a great portion of 

 the globe. * * * An adequate and undeniable cause for 

 the production of the phasnomena * * I consider is furnished 

 in the rotative motion of the earth upon its axis, in which ori- 

 ginate the centrifugal and other modifying influences of the 

 gravitating power, which must always operate upon the great 

 oceans of fluid and aerial matter, which rest upon the earth's 

 crust, producing of necessity those great currents to which we 

 have alluded." — (See Silliman's Journal, vol. xxviii. p. 316.) 

 Speaking of Sir John Herschel's explanation of the trade winds 

 and others, Mr. Redfield alleges, " Sir John has however 

 erred, like his predecessors, in ascribing mainly, if not pri- 

 marily, to heat and rarefaction those results which should have 

 been ascribed solely to mechanical gravitation as connected 

 with the rotative and orbitual motion of the earth's surface." 



61. Is it not surprising that it did not occur to the author of 

 these remarks, that an astronomer so eminent as Sir John Her- 

 schel would be less likely than himself to be ignorant of any 

 atmospheric influence resulting from gravitation or the diurnal 

 and annual revolutions of our planet — and that when he found 

 himself in opposition to the whole school of meteorologists, a 

 doubt did not arise whether the "grand error" was not in his 

 views of the subject instead of that which they had taken ? 



62. It seems to have been forgotten, that all the aqueous 

 portion of the terrestrial surface being, no less than the super- 

 incumbent atmosphere, subjected to the gravitating power and 

 the rotary and orbitual motions of our planet, no impulse can 

 be given to the one which is not received by the other ; and 

 that as the heavier the fluid the greater the influence, if this 

 be competent to create gales in the atmosphere, it must be no 

 less competent to produce torrents in the ocean. Moreover, 

 do not his opinions conflict not only with the whole school of 

 meteorologists, but also with a portion of the modern school 

 of geology? Agreeably to the last-mentioned school, the ex- 

 ternal portion of the earth consists of a comparatively thin 

 shell of earth and water floating upon an ocean of matter kept 

 in fusion by heat ; the oblate spheroidal form of our planet 

 being due to the perfect equilibrium of the " gravitating, ro- 



