JAMES POLLARD ESPY. 



In a word, for physical geography, agriculture, navigation, 

 and meteorology, it gives us new explanations, indications 

 useful for ulterior researches, and redresses many accredited 

 errors. The committee expresses, then, the wish that Mr. 

 Espy may be placed by the Government of the United States 

 in a position to continue his important investigations, and to 

 complete his theory, already so remarkable, by means of all 

 the observations and all the experiments which the deductions 

 even of his theory may suggest to him in a vast country, 

 where enlightened men are not wanting to science, and which 

 is, besides, the home of those fearful storms. The work of 

 Mr. Espy causes us to feel the necessity of undertaking a re- 

 trospective examination of the numerous documents already 

 collected in Europe, to arrange them, and draw from them de- 

 ductions which they can furnish, and more especially at the 

 present period, when the diluvial rains which have ravaged the 

 southeast of France have directed attention to all the possible 

 causes of similar phenomena. Consequently, the committee 

 proposes to the Academy to give its approbation to the labours 

 of Mr. Espy, and to solicit him to continue his researches, 

 and especially to try to ascertain the influence which elec- 

 tricity exerts in these great phenomena, of which a complete 

 theory will be one of the most precious acquisitions of modern 

 science." 



This report was incorporated in full in the introduction to 

 The Philosophy of Storms " not merely," as the author says 

 with characteristic independence of opinion, " for the purpose 

 of showing the reader that I have the highest authority on my 

 side for I do not submit to authority myself but to exhibit 

 a beautiful analysis of my theory by three of the most dis- 

 tinguished philosophers in Europe. As a matter of authority, 

 however, I should be justified in bringing forward the report 

 to rebut authority. It had been sneeringly said before a large 

 audience, by a distinguished professor, that I had failed to 

 convince men of science of the truth of my theory, and that I 

 had appealed to the people, who are incapable of judging. It 

 became, therefore, necessary to obtain authority against au- 

 thority." 



The origin of the studies upon which the theory of storms 

 is based is traced in the opening paragraph of the Philosophy 

 to the result described by Dalton, that the quantity of vapour 



