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362 On Storms and Meteorological Observations. 
»- as the causes known to be active upon the earth’s surface can seldom 
or never produce, at least, upon the scale that he supposes. 
1’. Tt may be ob ected to the opinions advanced in Mr. Redfield’s 
paper, that the induction upon which they are founded is too narrow, 
embracing too small a number of particular observations, and these 
too slightly connected to warrant the conclusions that are drawn from 
them. The phenomena stated may all be explained upon the sup- 
position of a whirlwind revolving about a horizontal axis. The prin- 
cipal movement of a revolving fluid is almost necessarily accompanied 
by various eddies, counter currents, and motions in an opposite di- 
rection, and especially must this be the case during the commotion 
produced by the precipitations and rapid and violent mixtures of air of 
different temperatures that constitute a furious storm. A good deal 
of stress is also laid upon the fact, that in certain specified cases, @ Vi0- 
lent wind from the N. E. E. 8S. E. S.orS. W. quarter was suc- 
ceeded by another from the north west. But did this north west 
wind by sinking down into a calm, after having continued for as long 
a time as the wind that preceded it, prove itself to be a portion of a 
retiring whirlwind? Or did it continue for a longer time—two or three 
days—with clear weather, and thus shew that it was the first burst of 
an aerial torrent, by which the current, natural to this part of the 
earth’s surface, was established. When a case shall be adduced 
where a wind from some other quarter succeeded one from the. north 
west as part of the same storm, the argument drawn from the changes 
remarked in the course of the wind, will be entitled to more weight 
and confidence. / . 
Tt may be observed farther that in the storms which sweep over the 
land, and which are of such moderate dimensions, that the direction 
* _ of the constituent wind can be easily and accurately ascertained } 
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whirlwinds are of rare occurrence. It is probable, therefore, that 
the same is true of such tempests as are of larger dimensions, a0 
whose route is either in part or altogether over the ocean. Itis @ 
sound rule in philosophy, that when any phenomena, from their vast- 
ness or for any other cause, cannot be accurately observed, their 
character is to be inferred from analogous phenomena that are Wi in 
the reach of observation. ; 
2.’ It is manifest that what has always been regarded as a princi 
pal difficulty in accounting for the phenomena of storms—the furnish- 
ing an explanation of the precipitation of moisture, with the immense? 
evolution of latent heat, and the depression of temperature which 
