1892.] VEEDER THUNDERSTORMS. I45 



existence of a vertical column of air ascending with such velocity 

 and to such distance as to correspond with the velocity and extent of 

 the horizontal movement. That is to say, in the case of a cyclonic 

 area of ordinary size, covering a part of New England for example, 

 the upward movement must be on such a scale as would produce a 

 pull on the wind vanes in Chicago very commonly and even in Omaha 

 or Salt Lake City at times. The aspiration of a column of air a 

 thousand miles or more in length against all the irregularities pre- 

 sented by the earth's surface and at velocities of from ten to twenty 

 miles an hour at least, is no small task, and yet the column of air 

 whose vertical movement is supposed to accomplish all this cannot be 

 more than about five miles high, unless it extend beyond the limit of 

 storm action and cloud stratification, which is very improbable. 

 Indeed storms have been noted at the base of Mt. Washington which 

 did not affect the wind direction at the summit. Moreover the very 

 best appliances that have been devised for the measurement of any 

 upward movement of the air, reveal only exceedingly small velocities 

 as compared with those in a horizontal direction. 



Again in the case of a very energetic storm remaining almost 

 stationary, like the famous New York blizzard, the indraught and up- 

 rush theory assumes that there is a constant abstraction of air from 

 surrounding localities for hundreds of miles at velocities ranging 

 from twenty-five to fifty miles an hour. If all this air is actually 

 drawn into the center of the storm and does not simply circulate 

 around it, it would seem that there should be some indication of such 

 accumulation in that vicinity. The barometer however gives no evi- 

 dence in such cases of any piling up or massing together of air, not 

 even to such an extent as would account for a gravitational outflow 

 in the upper strata to compensate for the gravitational inflow assumed 

 to exist at the surface of the earth. On the contrary, the harder the 

 wind blows and the more swiftly the storm rotates the lower the pressure 

 at the center, showing that instead of there being any increase in the 

 weight of the total air column or any choking backward due to accu- 

 mulation of air above there is exactly the opposite. This being the case 

 it is difficult to see how the horizontal component of motion can be 

 gravitation. 



There is difficulty also in reconciling the movement upward or 

 downward in cyclones and anti-cyclones with the accompanymg dis- 

 tribution of heat. The air overlying centers of low barometer has 

 been found to be very much colder than the normal for correspond- 



10, Proc. Roch. Acad, of Sc, Vol. 2, Fee. 1893. 



