96 Dr. Hare's Additional Objections to 



tably arise during a continued controversy, would be an Ixion 

 task. 



66. Speaking of the trade winds and monsoons, our author 

 states, " It is to the operation and effect of these great and 

 regular moving masses, that we are disposed mainly to ascribe 

 the more active and striking meteorological phaenomena of 

 every latitude." And again, " At these seasons the northern 

 margin or parallels of the trade winds sweeping towards the 

 gulf, must necessarily come in collision with the great archi- 

 pelago of islands which skirt the Carribean Sea ; * * * 

 (Silliman's Journal, vol. xx. p. 31,) the obstruction which they 

 afford produces a constant tendency to circular evolution. 

 * * * These masses of atmosphere thus set into active re- 

 volution continue to sweep along the islands with increased 

 rapidity of gyration until they impinge upon the American 

 coast." " We have assumed that the leading storms of the 

 northern and western Atlantic and theAmerican coast originate 

 in detached and gyrating portions of the northern margin of 

 the trade winds, occasioned by the oblique obstruction which 

 is opposed by the islands to the direct progress of this part 

 of the trade, or to the falling of the northerly and eddy wind 

 upon the trade, or to these causes combined." — (Silliman's 

 Journal, vol. xx. p. 48.) 



67. I trust it will be sufficiently evident, that although great 

 and regularly moving masses of air, by encountering obstruc- 

 tions, may undergo a transient deflection, and that a portion 

 accidentally caught in a strait with high cliffs on either side 

 might, like the tide in the Bay of Fundy, acquire a local and 

 temporary acceleration, yet that it would be utterly impossible 

 for a durable whirlwind to be thus excited. Obviously for the 

 endurance of a whirl, if not for its production, the continuous 

 application of at least two forces would be requisite, of which 

 one must be endowed with a centripetal efficacy in order to 

 counteract the concomitant centrifugal momentum. It will 

 be evident that although a local obstruction may cause an 

 eddy or whirl in its vicinity, the rotary momentum thus created 

 must soon be exhausted. But admitting that a blast by being 

 deflected by an island could become a permanent whirlwind, 

 obviously the resulting velocity could not be so great as that 

 of the generating current. The moderately blowing trade 

 wind could not, by contact with an inert body, acquire an in- 

 crease of velocity adequate to form a furious hurricane capa- 

 ble, as represented, of travelling circuitously for more than 

 two thousand miles. 



68. The hurricane once created, agreeably to the imagina- 

 tion of Mr. Redfield, its subsequent progress is described in 



