Mr. Redfield’s Second Reply to Dr. Hare. 255 
‘even many hundreds of miles, is to rush with all the fury of a 
‘storm, is to do violence to the established principles of natural 
‘science. ‘To ascribe such effects to such a cause, is no better 
“warranted than to refer all storms to the direct influence of elec- 
‘tricity and magnetism.”—Can it be that this summary rejection 
of ‘the influence” of “electricity” has occasioned the infliction 
of the “Objections,” “Strictures,’ and ‘Additional Objec- 
tions ?” 
It seems to dissatisfy Dr. Hare, that I should have stated the 
proper inquiry to be What are storms ? and not How are storms 
produced? He asks, “suppose that before ascertaining how fire is 
produced, chemists had waited for an answer to the question, what 
is fire, how much had science been retarded?” [47.] But, waiv- 
ing the lack of analogy between fire and storms, suppose that in 
treating of fire, one philosopher should mean by it the heat of 
combustion ; another the heat and smoke, maintaining that the 
fire depended on the latter ; while a third should view it as com- 
prising both these, together with all the effects produced in the 
surrounding air: would not the proper inquiry then be, What ts 
Jire ?—It appears evident that the laws and phenomena of storms 
must be first ascertained and established, ere we can successfully 
investigate their origin or primary causes. And this principle, I 
trust, has hitherto guided my inquiries. : 
Dr. Hare appears unwilling to relinquish the grateful task of 
rendering obnoxious the phrases “grand error’ and “school of 
meteorologists ;” which he honors with oft repeated notice. He — 
speaks also of “an endless controversy,”—in which he has cho- 
sen to volunteer, and which he prefers to carry on by criticisms 
instead of abiding the issues of fact, even when these have been 
presented by himself. He says, To follow me “in detail through 
all the misunderstandings which have arisen, and which would 
inevitably arise during a continued controversy, would be an 
Ixion task.” It may be, that grace to acknowledge ‘‘ the misun- 
derstandings” which the controversy had brought to light, would 
_ have tended greatly to shorten its duration. 
In paragraphs 49 to 52 Dr. Hare has expended his labors on 
Some superfluous suggestions in my earliest paper, which, more 
than three years since were virtually withdrawn, and the public 
notified of their relinquishment ;* but which, after all, seem at 
“* Seo Hote prefifed to my article on hurricanes, Vol. xxxv, p. 201 of this Jour- 
nal. Also in Nautical Magazine for January, 1839. 
