BlaBliis.] iJo fFel). 18, 



The Committee on Dr. Valeniini's memoir was continued. 

 The death of Mr. Charles des Moulins, at Bordeaux, on the 

 23d December, 1875, was announced by letter. 

 Mr. Blasius read a defense of Iiis theory of storms. 



A Brief Discussion of Some Opinions in Meteorology. 



By W. Blasius. 



Read before the American Philosophical Society, February \%th, 1876. 



The definite establishment of the laws which regulate the weather is of 

 so much general importance that I am induced to ask your attention to the 

 following remarks, since the discussion of opinions cannot fail to elaborate 

 the truth at last. 



In the January number of the Atlantic Monthly, there appeared a fair- 

 tempered review of my recent work on "Storms," which seems to be from 

 the pen of a practical meteorologist, between whom and myself, therefore, 

 I am the more anxious that there should be no misunderstandings. The 

 reviewer does not deny nor admit the truth of the theories I have advanced, 

 but leaves them to the verdict of time. 



He in some important particulars, however, fails to understand the views 

 I hold. Permit me to quote : 



" The West Cambridge Tornado, which first decided the direction of our 

 author's meteorlogical studies, seems to have had a too powerful in- 

 fluence upon his judgment of the ' cyclonists, ' the upholders of Ilcdfield's 

 Theory. Where a cyclonist sees a large storm 500 miles in diameter, on 

 the borders of which the winds are blowing in every direction, Dr. Blasius 

 sees many small storms, each modeled in a greater or less degree like the 

 West Cambridge Tornado. A verj^ striking proof that a storm may be con- 

 stituted as the cyclones are supposed to be is afforded by the singular case 

 of the ship Charles Heddle, which was caught in the borders of one of these 

 cyclones, and sailed five times completely around its border, meeting winds 

 blowing exactly in the directions demanded by the cyclone theory. The 

 experience of Dr. Blasius has been limited to local storms, and he has ap- 

 parently never been able to realize the existence of a storm of any magni- 

 tude. 



■ This is particularly evident in the discussion of Prof. Abbe's report on 

 the Nova Scotia storm of August 23, 1873. Prof Abbe is speaking of a 

 storm at least 500 miles in diameter, but Dr. Blasius discusses it as if it 

 were an assemblage of tornadoes each 1,^00 feet wide." 



Now the statement that where "a cyclonist sees large storms," I see 

 " many small storms" is curious enough, since a considerable part of my 



