123 Additional Objections to Redfield's Theory of Storms. 



Art. XL — Additional Objections to Redjield's Theory of Storms ; 

 by Robert Hare, M. D., Professor of Chemistry in the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania. 



33. In a communication to the American Journal of Science, 

 for January, I endeavored to point out various errors and incon- 

 sistencies, in the theory of storms proposed by Mr. Redfield, or 

 in the reasoning and assumed scientific principles on which that 

 theory had been advanced. Of these errors I will present a brief 

 summary. 



34. I conceive that Mr. Redfield has erred, in ascribing atmos- 

 pheric currents, whether constituting trade winds or storms of 

 any kind, " solely to tnechanical gravitation as connected with 

 the rotatory and orbitual motion of the earths* 



35. In ascribing those atmospheric gyrations of which accord- 

 ing to his hypothesis all storms consist to " opposing atid unequal 

 forces,^^ without specifying the nature or accounting for the exist- 

 ence of these forces, although implying that they originate as 

 above mentioned. 



36. In assigning to all fluid matter a tendency to "run into 

 whirls and circuits, when subjected to opposing and unequal for- 

 ces,''^ when this allegation, if true at all, can only be so in some 

 peculiar cases of such forces. 



37. In alleging all storms to be whirlwinds, and yet representing 

 a " rotative m,ovement in air as the only cause of destructive winds 

 and tempests,''^ so that a whirl is the only cause of a whirlwind.^ 



38. In averring, in reference to the alleged gyration and vor- 

 tical force of tornadoes which are by him treated as hurricanes 

 in miniature, that "all narrow and violent vortices have a spiral 

 involute motion quickening i?i its gyration as it approaches the cen- 

 tre or axis of the whirl,^' whereas it must be evident that when 

 gyration in a fluid does not result from a contemporaneous centrip- 

 etal force, arising from an ascending or descending current at the 



* See paragraph 43 of this essay. 



t This Journal, Vol. xxi, p. 192 : Storms and hurricanes consist in the regular 

 gyratory motion or action of a progressive body of atmosphere, which action is the 

 sole cause of the violence which they may exhibit. 



If we understand Mr. Redfield, he assigns the whirlwind as the cause of the 

 " violence" — not as the cause of the " whirlwind" — the two words not being sy- 

 nonymous. — Eds. 



