188 



storms. But these early observations and suggestions, pointing 

 chiefly to local phenomena, and involving no clear conception of 

 a general law, attracted little notice at the time of their publica- 

 tion, and were almost, if not entirely forgotten when Redfield 

 and Dove, without a knowledge of each other's labors, framed 

 the great generalization of the progressive-rotary character of 

 these atmospheric movements. Without detracting from Prof. 

 Dove's share in the investigation, it must, I think, be admitted, 

 that to Mr. Redfield is preeminently due the credit of having 

 first given to this law a truly inductive character ; and I need 

 hardly add that his analysis, year after year, of the data dili- 

 gently collected by him, was a work involving no small amount 

 of detailed labor, as well as of sagacity and skill. 



Although his investigations were directed pi-incipally to the 

 storms of the Atlantic north of the Equator, he w^as early led 

 on theoretical grounds to announce the proposition that in the 

 southern hemisphere the motion of storms is the reverse of that 

 presented by them in the northern one, both as regards progres- 

 sion and rotation. This statement was soon after confirmed by 

 Col. Reid, the author of the well-known work on the Law of 

 Storms, in an elaborate investigation of those of the Southern 

 Indian Ocean. 



These important generalizations in the discovery and develop- 

 ment of which Mr, Redfield so largely shai'ed, although not 

 universally accepted either at home or abroad, have been adopted 

 by most of those who have devoted themselves to the practical 

 study of the subject, and in particular have been advocated with 

 much ability by Col. Reid, already named, and by Mr. Pidding- 

 ton, author of the " Sailor's Horn-book for Storms," to both of 

 whom we are indebted for extensive researches in this branch of 

 Meteorology. Through the treatises of these gentlemen, and the 

 numerous memoirs of Mr. Redfield, this theory is rapidly becom- 

 ing familiar to the minds of navigators, many of whom have not 

 only accepted but practically applied it. Even the general public 

 have learned its language and its leading features, from the 

 accounts of cyclones or revolving storms, so often repeated in 

 the current news. It is but proper to add that the evidence in 

 favor of this law has lately received an important accession from 

 the publication by Mr. Poey of Havana, of a tabular description 



