Memoir of William C. Redjield. 365 



degree probable, that every breeze tbat blows is a part of some 

 reat system of aerial circulation and helps to fulfill some grand 

 esigri. ''Inconstant as the winds" has long been a favorite ex- 

 pression to denote the absence of all uniformity or approach to 

 fixed rules; but the researches of the meteorologists of our 

 times, force on us the conclusion that the winds, even in the vio- 

 lent forms of hurricanes and tornadoes, are governed by laws 

 hardly less determinate than those which control the movements 

 of the planets. 



It has been often noticed in the history of science and the arts, 

 that great discoveries and inventions spring forth simultaneously 

 from different independent sources. Thus the discovery of oxy- 

 gen gas, the greatest single discovery in chemistry, was made 

 almost at the same moment by Priestley in England and Scheele 

 in Sweden; and the method of fluxions, or the infinitesimal 

 calculus, was invented at nearly the same time by Newton and 

 Leibnitz. Such discoveries and inventions are the true resultant 

 of innumerable forces, which at that moment, and never until 

 then since the origin of time, all conspired. It is remarkable 

 that the idea that great storms are progressive whirlwinds was, 

 for the first time, embraced nearly at the same instant by Eed- 

 field and Dove, although the conclusion was arrived at by totally 

 different methods of investigation. Mr. Red field says in a note 

 to his paper on the Cuba hurricane, published in 1846, that it 

 was not until seven years after the publication of his theory of 

 the rotary and progressive character of storms, that he became 

 acquainted with the suggestions and opinions of Col. Capper, 

 and with the particular views and elucidations published by 

 Professor Dovd in his paper on Barometric Minima found in 

 Poggendorff's Annalen for 1828. To all who were personally 

 acquainted with Redfield, it would be quite unnecessary to ad- 

 duce any other evidence than his simple declaration, of the per- 

 fectly original and independent character of his theory of the 

 laws of storms. But we might refer to the circumstances under 

 which it was conceived, when he was far removed from all libra- 

 ries, and all intercourse with the scientific world ; and as respects 

 pove, in particular, whose essay was communicated to the public 

 in 1828, it may be said, that at that period there was scarcely a 

 copy of Pog^endorff 's Annalen, in which Dove's essay appeared, 

 in the United States ; and being in the German language, nothing 

 could be more improbable than that its contents were then known 

 to Redfield. In 1838, our friend found to his great joy a most 

 able ally in CoL Ecid of the Koyal English Engineers, then sta- 

 tioned in the island of Barbadoes. The earliest inquiries of CoL 

 Peid were based on a violent hurricane, which occurred in that 

 island in the year 1831. Searching for accounts of previous 

 storms, he met with nothing satisfactory until he fell in with 



