Mr. Redfield on Tides and Currents. 293 
Art. 1X.—Remarks on Tides and the Prevailing Currents of 
the Ocean and Atmosphere ; by W. C. Reprirvp. 
[Read before the American Philosophical Society at their centennial meeting, 
May 27th, 1843.] 
THE summary remarks and suggestions which follow, relate 
chiefly to the systematic currents of the ocean and the atmos- 
phere; and were drawn upon short notice in the summer of 
1838 at the request of a gentleman attached to the U. 8. Explo- 
ring Expedition,* and were designed for reference, correction, 
and verification, by the scientific observers of the Expedition. 
The views thus submitted I had derived, in previous years, 
from somewhat extensive examinations of the observations which 
had been made by voyagers and travellers in different seas and 
countries, and they are offered without an array of particular ref- 
erences to the numerous facts and observations from which they 
have been derived. 'This course was adopted, on that occasion, 
as being the least laborious, and because it was the undoubted 
design of the observers of the expedition to subject all general 
views and theories to the test of direct observations. 
As a substitute, however, for those specific observations from 
which my results had been drawn, I delineated on maps and 
charts which were furnished me for the purpose, not only the 
general outlines or courses of the systems of general winds and 
currents which I had found to prevail in the Pacific Ocean and 
other seas, but also, some of the particular observations by which 
in my view, the existence of these currents had been established. 
These maps, seven in number, were lost by the unfortunate 
wreck of the Peacock, near the mouth of the Columbia River. 
It is not my design to bestow further labor upon this exten- 
sive subject till the observations and results of the expedition 
shall have been published. But as observations on meteorology 
and the cognate branches of terrestrial physics may have been 
more limited in the expedition than I could have had reason to 
apprehend, particularly in the Atlantic, I venture now to lay be- 
fore the Society my unfinished memoir of that period, even with- 
out those specific delineations which would have been afforded 
by the lost maps, which I have not yet attempted to reconstruct. 
* James D. Dana Esq., geologist of the expedition. 
