35S Memoir of William C. Redfield. 



On the 3d of September, 1821, there occurred, in the eastern 

 part of Connecticut, one of the most violent storms ever known 

 there, and long remembered as the " great September Gale." 

 Shortly after this, Mr. Redfield being on a journey to the western 

 part of Massachusetts, happened to travel over a region covered 

 oy marks of the ravages of the recent storm. He was accompa- 

 nied by his eldest son, then a young lad, who well remembers 

 these early observations of his father, and the inferences he drew 

 from them. At Middletown, the place of Mr. Redfield's resi- 

 dence, the gale commenced from the southeast, prostrating the 

 trees towards the northwest; but on reaching the northwestern 

 part of Connecticut, and the neighboring parts of Massachusetts, 

 ne was surprised to find that there the trees lay Avith their heads 

 in the opposite direction, or towards the southeast. He was still 

 more surprised to find, that at the very time when the wind was 

 blowing with such violence from the southeast at Middletown, a 

 northwest wind w^as blow^ing with equal violence at a point less 

 than seventy miles distant from that place. On tracing further 

 the course and direction of prostrated objects, and comparing 

 the times when the storm reached different places, the idea flashed 

 upon his mind that the storm was a progressive whirlwind. A 

 conviction thus forced upon his mind after a fuH survey of the 

 facts was not likely to lose its grasp. Amid all his cares, it clung 

 to him, and was cherished with the enthusiasm usual to the stu- 

 dent of nature, who is conscious of having become the honored 

 medium of a new revelation of her mysteries. Nothing, how- 

 ever, could have been farther from his mind, than the thought 

 that the full development of that idea, w^ould one day place him 

 among the distinguished philosophers of his time. So little, 

 indeed, did he dream of fame, that for eight or nine years after 

 the first conception of his theory, he gave little attention to the 

 study of the phenomena of storms, but was deeply engrossed in 

 other enterprises which, although foreign to this subject, were 



alike evincive of his original and inventive turn of mind. Oi 

 these we may take a passing notice. 



^ Before the scientific world, Mr. Kedfield has appeared so exclu- 

 sively ia the character of a philosopher, especially of a meteor- 

 ologist, that they have been hardly aware of the important ser- 

 vices he l^as rendered the public in the character of naval en- 

 gineer, particularly in the department of steamboat navigation. 

 His attention was turned professionally towards this subject as 

 early as the year 1820, when he became much interested in an 

 experiment with a small boat propelled by an engine of new and 

 peculiar construction, the invention of Franklin Kelsey, Esq.; a 

 townsman of his. Although the enterprize w^as not successful 

 to the company, yet to himself it was not destitute of valuable 

 results, as it was the occasion of his acquiring a more intimate 



