Objections to Mr. Redfield's Theory of Storms. 145 



wind as to make furrows in the ground, of which one was nearly 

 at right angles to the other. Evidently such furrows could not 

 rise from the transient tangential impulse of a whirlwind. 



23. Mr. Redfield admits that the confused directions of fallen 

 bodies is distinctly recognized by all the parties to this inquiry. 

 Conceding, that amid this confusion, he has been enabled, by a 

 survey, to show that the directions in which certain trees fell are 

 consistent with their having been subjected to a whirlwind, it 

 does not demonstrate gyration to be an essential feature of torna- 

 does. It is sufficiently accounted for by considering it as a for- 

 tuitous consequence of the conflux of currents rushing into a 

 space partially exhausted. 



24. Mr. Redfield adopts the singular determination of not noti- 

 cing "the insuperable difficulties" of the hypothesis which he has 

 undertaken to set aside. As the advocates of the disputed hypoth- 

 esis are not aware of any such difficulties, is it correct to allege 

 their existence, without mentioning the facts and arguments 

 which justify this allegation ? 



25. Without repeating here the evidence and the reasoning 

 which I have already published on this subject, I will advert to one 

 fact which is utterly irreconcilable with Mr. Redfield's " rotary 

 theory;" I allude to the statement of a most respectable witness, 

 that while the tornado at Providence was crossing the river, the 

 water which had risen up as if boiling within a circle of about 

 three hundred feet, subsided as often as a flash of lightning took 

 place. Now supposing the water to have risen by a deficit of 

 pressure resulting from the centrifugal force of a whirl, how 

 could an electrical discharge cause it to subside ? 



26. I have already, I trust, sufficiently shown that the explana- 

 tion which Mr. Redfield dignifies with the title of his -'theory of 

 rotary storms," amounts to no more than this, that certain imagin- 

 ary nondescript unequal and opposing forces produce atmosphe- 

 ric gyration, that these gyrations by their consequent centrifugal 

 force, create about the axis of motion a deficit of pressure, and 

 hence the awful and destructive violence displayed by tornadoes 

 and hurricanes. 



27. I cannot give to this alleged theory the smallest importance, 

 while the unequal and opposing forces, on which it is built, exist 

 only in the imagination of an author who disclaims the agency 

 either of heat or electricity. But admitting a whirlwind to be 



Vol. xLii, No. 1.— Oct.-Dec. 1841. 19 



