PROFESSOR OLMSTED'S OBJECTIONS. 439 



experiment proved it, provided there was a whirl in the 

 air. Now, I think the experiment did not even prove that ; 

 for if the sides of the vessel had been taken away, the wa- 

 ter, on being put into circular motion, would have moved 

 outwards and not upwards at the sides. And, in the case 

 of the water-spout, if it whirled, the air must have moved 

 outwards and not upwards, for the sides of the vessel were 

 all removed in that meteor. It would almost appear from 

 this experiment, that the Professor was an advocate for my 

 theory, and intended to ridicule the whirlwind theory in the 

 most sarcastic manner ; for there the Professor had his dia- 

 gram to prove, by ocular demonstration, that the air did 

 blow inwards at the sides and in the rear ; and then he ex- 

 hibited an experiment proving that if there was a whirl, 

 the air would move outwards on all sides. That this was 

 really the object of that experiment is highly probable from 

 two considerations : first, the Professor, in the beginning 

 of his lecture, avowed that he was not an advocate for 

 Redfield's theory; and second, it is the only supposition 

 which will free him from the absurdity of bringing forward 

 an experiment to prove a theory which it absolutely dis- 

 proved. 



If, indeed, the experiment was brought forward to show 

 that a rapid whirl would cause an outward motion of the 

 air at the surface of the earth, a downward motion of the 

 air in the middle, and an inward motion of the air above, 

 and, of course, a fall of the barometer in the middle, it would 

 have been successful ; but, unfortunately, there were no 

 such motions of the air proved by the phenomena exhibited 

 in the New Haven tornado. The Professor acknowledged 

 there was an inward motion of the air below at the sides, 

 and I am unable to perceive why he did not acknowledge 

 the same in front and rear, as the corn-stalks, according to 

 his own showing, in the New Haven spout, all in the cen- 

 tre of the path, lay with their tops forwards ; and many 



