SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT ON METEOROLOGY. 109 
without discussion. The mutual dependence of meteorological 
phenomena in a general way can hardly be disputed, but the 
fundamental Law of Rotation has been denied by Schouw, who 
has made this subject his particular study*. The subject now 
attracts considerable attention in Germany {, and the indications 
of anemometers, like Osler’s, are well adapted to put it to the 
test. 
C. Phenomena of Stormst. 
212. The ingenious observations of Franklin on the travelling 
of storms opposite to the actual movement of the wind which 
produced them, led to the supposition of local rarefactions 
and the sudden rush of wind from all quarters to supply the va- 
cuity. The enormous linear velocity of the aerial particles re- 
quired to produce the observed effects, to which might be added 
the difficulty of conceiving this propagation of disturbance to 
continue for days together, and to pass over hundreds or thou- 
sands of miles, with unabated intensity, led Colonel Capper to 
suggest in 1801 §, that the velocity of the wind at any point was 
chiefly due to the velocity of rotation of a vortex of fluid, com- 
bined probably with a progressive motion. Prof. Mitchell, of 
America, seems to have retrograded when he assigned to the 
gyration a vertical plane of motion||; but he was speedily fol- 
lowed by Redfield, who, doing all justice to those who preceded 
him, established Colonel Capper’s doctrine by a diligent appeal to 
facts]. Mr. Redfield has been fortunate also in having a Eu- 
ropean fellow-labourer in the same field, who has been equally 
candid in his acknowledgements of what he borrowed from Ame- 
rica. Colonel Reid, in a handsome and elaborate work**, has 
maintained the same views, and supported them by an examina- 
* See Kamtz, i., 257, and Pogg. xiv. 546. See also Schouw’s extensive 
Essay on the Winds of Europe, “ Beitrdge”, &c., p. 1—115. 
+ See Galle’s papers on the Extension of Dove’s Law to the Southern He- 
misphere. Poggendorff, xxxi. 465 ; xxxviii. 472. 
ft First Report, p. 248. 
§ Ina work on the Monsoons and periodical winds, quoted by Redfield, Reid, 
and others. 
{| Silliman’s Journal, 1831, xix. 248. 
§] His first paper is in Silliman’s Journal, 1831, xx. 17. There is a reply 
to him by Mitchell in the same volume. See also London Nautical Magazine, 
April, 1836, and Jan. 1839, and Silliman, xxx. 115. 
** On the Law of Storms. 8vo. London, 1838. An interesting review of this 
work, and of the previous labours of Redfield, will be found in the Edinburgh 
Review, Ixviii. 406, to which those readers who wish a popular compend of 
the subject are referred. Since these pages were written, Prof. Dove has ex- 
plicitly claimed the credit (Phil. Mag., Nov. 1840,) of having first in recent 
times asserted the revolving and progressive character of storms, and their op- 
posite character in the two hemispheres.—Compare Pogg. xiii. 596. 
