PREFACE. VI 1 



of a true system of meteorology, will be the death of super- 

 stition on this subject. For example, if it is true that a 

 great storm, when once generated, contains a self-sustaining 

 power, and continues for many days and nights in succes- 

 sion, terminating in one place while it is beginning in an- 

 other, the belief in planetary or lunar influence in the 

 production of this meteor, being incompatible with this 

 single fact, it will be abandoned forever. 



I owe an apology to the reader for the frequent repetitions 

 of the elementary principles which he will find in the body 

 of the work. 



My apology, I trust, will amount to a justification, when 

 it is known, that the whole work is made up of parts, writ- 

 ten at very different periods of time, during the last seven 

 years, according as new storms were investigated, or new 

 facts brought to light. 



Now, it was necessary, that each of these parts, which 

 were all intended for separate publication, should contain 

 the elementary principles on which the explanation of the 

 phenomena depends, it follows, either that the publication 

 of the work should be delayed to an unknown period, to 

 give time to remodel the whole, or that the original essays 

 should be published entire. After all, I do not much fear 

 censure on this point, from those who shall read the 

 work with a determination to understand. With them the 

 great question will be, is the theory true ? 



If the evidences which they will find scattered through- 

 out the work, almost with the profusion of nature, though 

 no where centred in one combined phalanx, shall enable 

 them to answer this question in the affirmative; the main 

 purpose for which the work was written will be accom- 

 plished : and the magnitude and importance of the truth 

 will leave but little disposition to look censoriously at the 

 mere external form in which that truth is presented. 



I have avoided technical language in this work, and I 



