392 Mr. Redfield's Notice of Dr. Hards Strictures, fyc. 



the great extent of aerial surface in contact with the earth and 

 with the surrounding atmosphere, in a storm, is peculiarly favor- 

 able to the development of these rotative influences. 



In the case of the smaller whirlwinds, Dr. Hare now finds it 

 necessary to admit the inward tendency of their rotation ; which 

 inward tendency, as I have formerly shown, is also exhibited in 

 tornadoes, near the earth's surface ; a fact which he had labored 

 to disprove. A like tendency, I apprehend, is usually exhibited, 

 though in quite a subordinate degree, in hurricanes and violent 

 storms. And in cases where the successive changes in the direc- 

 tion and force of the wind in a storm have been observed and 

 recorded, in different portions of its path, they have often been 

 found analogous in character to those in smaller travelling whirl- 

 winds. 



As further relates to these small whirlwinds, Dr. Hare is greatly 

 in error when he states, that " it is only when the wind blows 

 briskly that such whirls are ever seen to take place f* — and he is 

 likewise wrong in saying that " tornadoes agreeably to universal 

 observation occur when there is little or no wind externally." I 

 know of several cases which disagree with these allegations : and 

 has Dr. Hare himself forgotten the state of the winds at the 

 time of the New Brunswick tornado? A destructive tornado in 

 Charleston, S. C, many years since, occurred during the preva- 

 lence of a storm, (par. 125-127.) & *& 



To me it appears, that the main course of discussion pursued 

 by Dr. Hare in one hundred and twenty eight elaborate para- 

 graphs, is essentially misapplied and erroneous. If the supporters 

 of a rotative or whirlwind action in tornadoes and hurricanes had 

 chosen to maintain their cause in a speculative manner, the case 

 might have been different. But when their facts and results 

 were offered on the basis of direct observations, which had been 

 set forth, in many cases, with particularity and precision, it seems 

 like a waste of words to assail these observed phenomena and 

 results with strictures and objections of this character ; volumes 

 of which can never equal in value the direct observations which 

 may be made of the phenomena of a single storm. 



New York, February 7, 1843. 



