262 Mr. Redfield’s Second Reply to Dr. Hare. 
risen, I see not how it could give strength to Dr. Hare’s electrical 
hypothesis ; there being a known upward mechanical force in 
the wind, at the center of a tornado. 
The allegation that the injurious “ effects upon the leaves of 
trees,” [83]... “cannot be explained without supposing them 
to have been the medium of an electric discharge,” appears quite 
gratuitous: the mechanical violence of the wind which is wit- 
nessed in the severest storms, bruising and tearing off the leaves 
by thousands, seems an obvious and adequate cause of the injury 
which the remaining leaves sustain. 
If a “convective discharge takes place between a stratum of 
air in proximity to the earth and a stratum in the region of 
clouds,” [84] it must, as before suggested, be through a recipro- 
cating or vibratory medium, the downward motions of which 
should every where be nearly equal to the wpward ; and there 
would be no occasion for the horizontal motion which constl- 
tutes the main force of hurricanes, tornadoes, and other storms. 
Such vertical motions could hardly take place ; and if occurring; 
could not escape detection. 
The reasoning adduced by our author against Mr. Espy’s the- 
ory, [85] seems conclusive: but it appears not to strengthen the 
electrical hypothesis. 
The alleged electrical relations of the earth’s atmosphere, 
[88-90] if correctly stated, must always exist ; and cannot serve 
to explain the action of storms, which, stnSdiunlng to the usual 
course of the great winds, pursue regular geographic routes, Un 
changed by the electrical qualities of the surface over which 
ey pass 
Neither violent winds nor rains are commensurate with, nor 
always incident to “a local diminution of atmospheric pres 
sure.” Instead of alleging the latter as ‘‘ demonstrably a cause 
of wind and rain,” would it not be more philosophical and cor 
rect to consider diminutions of pressure as the effect of certain 
mechanical movements in the atmosphere? which often occa- 
sion rain as well as winds. [9L.] 
Have “those enormous discharges of electricity which take 
pace during hu hurricanes,” as alleged, [92] been proved to occur 
Hormly or — And could these discharges 
| If so, let the modus aba 
