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greatest fury in the torrid zone, always however at some 

 distance from the equator, which they never touch or 

 cross. In the polar regions they are unknown, but they 

 occur occasionally in the temperate zones. In 1831, 

 Win. C. Redfield published in the "American Journal of 

 Science" the first of a remarkable series of papers upon 

 the phenomena of storms, in which he clearly established 

 the fact that storms are progressive whirlwinds of a 

 large diameter, and, what is remarkable, as is now well 

 ascertained, those in the southern hemisphere rotate in an 

 opposite direction from those in the northern, the former 

 turning in whirls with the hands of a watch placed face 

 upwards, the latter in the contrary direction to the move- 

 ment of the hands of the watch. Mr Redfield subse- 

 quently suggested, what is now an accomplished fact, 

 that the telegraph was likely to prove a most valuable 

 instrument in giving notice of the approach of storms 

 and hurricanes, and that to the United States it would 

 prove more specially valuable when extended to the 

 West India Islands. 



From the accumulation and induction of facts in the 

 domain of nature, are often deduced with absolute cer- 

 tainty the great laws — laws uniform and fixed — that 

 control and regulate every department of that vast do- 

 main. The humblest observer and worker in our own 

 Essex Institute — may her shadow never be less ! — 

 helps to this discovery by patient waiting and knocking 

 for a response from the great mystery within, not growing- 

 weary or discouraged because it cometh not in a day, in 

 a year, or in a series of years, but recording well ascer- 

 tained facts for those who may afterwards take his place 

 and so keeping up the line of waiters and watchers till 

 the darkness flee away, and the bright light of morning 

 gild the horizon. 



