é 
—_ 
Additional Objections to Redfield’s Theory of Storms. ft, 
80. Our experiments make us’ familiar with two processes of 
electric discharge. In one of these electricity passes in the form 
of sparks > ene in the other it may be conveyed, without 
any perceptible evolution of light, by the alternate-or successive 
contact of intervening bodies with the excited surfaces: as for 
instance by means ae pith balls, pendula, or a blast of air. The 
former process has lately been designated by Faraday as “ disrup- 
tive,” the latter as “ convective” discharge. 
81. The disruptive process being exemplified by lightning; 
the magnificent apparatus of nature, by means of which this. aw- 
ful phenomenon is displayed, may be supposed competent to pro- 
duce convective discharge upon a scale of proportionable magni- 
tude, as exhibited. in tornadoes and hurricanes. 
82. As bodies oppositely electrified attract each other, 4 fortiori, 
attraction must always exist between any bodies sufficiently elec- 
trified for an electric discharge to take place between them. This 
law may be illustrated by means of an instrument called Cull- 
bertson’s electrometer. Hence the rising of the water within the 
track of a tornado and its subsidence on the passage of lightning, 
as observed by Mr. Allen, near the city of Providence, R. L.,* may 
be considered as resulting from the alternation of amin with 
‘disruptive discharge. By this observation of Mr. Allen, attraction 
is shown to have existed between an electrified stratum of air 
coated by clouds, and the oppositely electrified water of a subja- 
cent river. It is reasonable to inter. that, attraction; originating 
in the same way 
phere in the vicinity of the enrthy: by counteracting gravitation 
may cause that rarefaction by which houses are burst or unroof- 
ed, and an upward current of. tremendous force produced. We 
. *“ The most interesting appearance was_e: exhibited ion the ‘sempals left the 
shore and struck the surface of the adjacent river. Being w ithin a few yards of. 
this spot I had an opportunity of accurately noting the effects produced on the sur- 
of the water.” The circle formed by the tornado on the foaming water, was 
about three hundred feet in diameter. Within this circle the water appeared to be 
in commotion, like that in a huge boiling cauldron; and misty vapors, resembling 
steam, rapidly arose from the surface, and entering the whirling vortex, at times 
veiled from sight the si of the circle; and the lower extremity of the overbang- 
dark cone of vapor. ‘Twice I noticed a gleam of lightning or of electric fluid 
to dart through the tate of vapor which served as a conductor for it to ascend 
from the A to the cloud. After the “flash the foam of the water seemed i imme- 
pried to a eaittivaly ‘for a wmonent, as if the discharge = the electri ‘wd serv: 
* 
Wel ak xuut, No, 1.—April-June, “1842. 18 
