362 Mr. Redfield's Reply to Dr. Hare, 



gence from the course of the tornado being still a marked 

 feature of these overlying prostrations. 



I have never found a directly backward prostration on the 

 line of the centre, or axis of a tornado. This, and the above- 

 mentioned facts, will be found sufficiently "irreconcilable" with 

 a direct " afflux of the wind from all points of the compass," 

 " in a central and non-whirling course," " towards a common 

 focal area." 



Dr. Hare " cannot understand how the opposite forces 

 belonging respectively to the different sides of the whirl- 

 wind, can be made to bear successively upon one spot, so as to 

 cause trees to fall in diametrically opposite directions." (25.) 

 Neither can I understand this, if each of these "opposite di- 

 rections" be parallel to the course or track of the tornado! as 

 is alleged by Dr. Hare in the passage last noticed. 



We are next informed, that " Another fact, irreconcilable 

 with a general whirling motion, was adduced by Messrs. Espy 

 and Bache. One of the four posts, upon which a frame build- 

 ing was supported, was first moved towards the tornado, as it 

 advanced ; in the next place as it moved away, so as to make 

 two farrows in the ground. In the interim the frame was 

 protected by a larger building, which intervened between it 

 and the tornado. I am utterly unable to understand how 

 the transient tangential forces of a whirlwind blowing oppo- 

 sitely, on the opposite margins of its track, could thus move 

 the post in question, so as to make two distinct furrows in 

 the ground indicating two successive impulses, in directions 

 of which one Avas at right angles with the other." (26.) 



Dr. Hare here alleges that one of the posts ^' laas^rst moved 

 towards the tornado, as it advanced ;" but I have been called 

 to answer this case in another shape, in the American Journal ; 

 and Prof. Bache, on whose descriptions he doubtless relies, 

 shows us that the tornado advanced from south 80° west, to 

 north 80° east ; and that the post was first moved " to the west 

 ofnorthy 



But on what grounds this " fact" is pronounced " irrecon- 

 cilable with a general whirling motion," I am wholly un- 

 able to perceive. For, had he closely examined the whole 

 case, he would hardly have failed to see that the movements 

 of this building, as described by Professor Bache, are fully 

 " reconcilable" to an involute " whirling motion," such as I 

 allege to be characteristic of these tornadoes ; and that there 

 was no necessity for resorting to the gratuitous hypothesis of 

 its being " protected by a larger building," or even that of 

 " the suction of the tornado," as alleged in the American 

 Journal. 



