Mr. Redfield’s Second Reply to Dr. Hare. 261 
We now arrive [par. 79] at Dr. Hare’s own views of the ori- 
gin of storms. These, whether “thunder gusts, tornadoes, or 
hurricanes,” ... ‘he had considered, and still considers, to be 
mainly owing to electric discharges between the earth and the 
sky, or between one mass of clouds and another.” (This Jour- 
nal, Vol. xt, p. 44.) With this theory or hypothesis, I have no 
particular concern in this defensive discussion ; and shall there- 
fore make but few remarks on the subsequent portion of his pa- 
per, which is mainly a reprint of matter which was subjoined to 
his ‘objections and strictures,” as these first appeared in the 
Lond. Ed. and Dub. Phil. Magazine. 
In either “disruptive” or “convective” discharges of electri- 
city, I discern nothing which can originate or maintain those 
violent movements of the air which constitute astorm. If the 
atoms of air are to perform the functions of electrified ‘ pith 
balls,” or ‘ pendula,” and thus make a hurricane, (!) it would seem 
necessary to place them in such space as would admit of their free 
action, and where their motions could hardly constitute the wind 
or movement in mass of a dense body of atmosphere which is un- 
der a compression more than equal to twenty eight inches of the 
barometric column. There can be no previous “blast of air’ to 
aid the “ convection,” as this convection is itself supposed to fur- 
nish the blast. Nor has any “alternate” or vibratory motion in 
the air, passing to and fro between the electrified surfaces of the 
earth and the clouds, been discovered in storms; which, on the 
“convective” hypothesis, ought to constitute their chief violence. 
Besides, the cloud étself, the probable resuié of the tornado or 
storm, must first be produced, ere such “convection” could be 
called into action. , st abot es ‘s 
“The disruptive process,” as “exemplified by lightning,” ap- 
pears wholly incompetent in itself or its causes “to produce con- 
vective discharge upon a scale,” equalling in constancy and me- 
chanical effect the force which is ‘‘exhibited in tornadoes and 
hurricanes.” [81.] And if it were otherwise, the action of a 
hurricane or tornado, on this hypothesis, must cease on the oc- 
currence of a “disruptive” discharge; but such discharges ap- 
pear to cause no cessation in the meclianical force of these storms. 
The rising of “ misty vapors resembling steam,” from the mgs 
face of a river, in a tornado, again comes to us d into 
“the rising of the water:” [82] although, had the water thus — 
