Bibliography. 145 



they have lost a mast or two in a hurricane, quote to them the assur- 

 ance of Poor Richard, that ; they that will not be counselled cannot be 

 helped,' and further, that 4 if you will not hear reason, she will assur- 

 . edly rap your knuckles'— in the next hurricane." 



The views entertained in Mr. Piddington's work are not novel to the 

 American public ; — or at least they ought not so to be : for they have 

 been propounded and dwelt on at great length in this Journal, with 

 abundant details and numerous illustrations. Here, in fact, they were 

 first presented to the world. Mr. William C. Redfield, of New York, is 

 the acknowledged author: severely and successfully has he labored, to 

 ascertain the truth and make it useful to navigators. In his historical 

 remarks, Mr. Piddington cites several authors of the past century, who 

 had suggested that the violent storms at sea were rotary gales,* and 

 then observes that — 



" Up to the first ten years of the present century, all that appears 

 known and published of tropical storms and hurricanes was that they 

 were often great whirlwinds. Franklin had indeed shown in 1760, that 

 the northeast storms of the American coast came from the S.W., but 

 he did not prosecute the enquiry farther. 



" Fortunately for science, however, Mr. William C. Redfield, of New 

 York, had his attention drawn to the subject in the course of his pro- 

 fessional pursuits as a Naval Architect, and in 1831 published in the 

 £ 4 American Journal of Science' a valuable paper, the first of a numer- 



ous series which has since followed, in which he demonstrated not 

 only that the storms of the American coast were whirlwinds, but more- 

 over that they were progressive whirlwinds moving forwards on curved 

 tracks at a considerable rate, and were traceable from the West Indies 

 and along the Coast of the United States till they curved off to the 

 eastward between the Bermudas and the Banks of Newfoundland. He 

 also gave many excellent practical rules for the management of ships,, 

 so as to avoid, or at least to diminish, the chances of damages from 

 rotary storms, with valuable remarks on the barometer as a guide.t 



"In an able article on the Law of Storms in the 4 North American 

 Review,' for April, 1844, is the following, which is not only part of the 

 history of our science, but moreover a well merited tribute to the la- 

 bors of the gentleman named in it — and I do not mean here to speak 

 w ith less respect of those whose views have, I think, been proved erro- 

 neous. No one can have undertaken independent researches in any 

 branch of the physical sciences without soon feeling that mankind owe 

 nuich more than is usually supposed to those who have missed their 

 r °ad ; they are the soldiers who have fallen, the successful are the vic- 

 tors who survive to reap the honors of the combat. 



♦ 



* He mentions that Colonel Capper, in 1801, speaks of the Madras and Coro- 

 ffiandel coast hurricanes as u whirlwinds whose diameter cannot be more than 120 

 lilies, and the vortex seems generally near Madras or Pulicat. 



* Mr. Redfield's papers in this Journal, are contained in volumes xx, 17; xxi r 

 J f l 5 mv, U4.122; xxviii, K4 ; xxxi,H5; xxxiii, 50; xxxv, 201 ; xxxvi, 50,59 ; 

 ?I»>69; xlii, 112, 290; xliii, '250,263; xliv,384; xlv,293> also in n series, vol. i, 



158,333; ii, 162, 311. 

 Second Series, Vol. VII, No. 19— Jan., 1849. 19 



