Mr. Redfield's Second Reply to Dr. Hare. 251 



to Dr. Hare, who had chosen to ''enter the lists" as a disputant, 

 in support of his own and Mr. Espy's notion of the centripetal 

 course of the wind in storms ; particularly as this New Bruns- 

 wick case had from the first been greatly relied on by these two 

 writers, as supporting their peculiar theories. 



At the same time, however, I, possessed in my field notes abun- 

 dant evidence of the constant rotative action of other tornadoes ; 

 and diagrams illustrating some of the traces of these storms had 

 long been prepared and cut in wood ; but I saw no defect in the 

 evidence of rotation already exhibited, that could render the pub- 

 lication of these necessary. 



Among the tornadoes the traces of which I had thus prepared 

 to illustrate, was that which passed near Providence in August, 

 1838, of which some account has been given by Dr. Hare;* and 

 as the desire to obtain favor for his own electrical hypothesis may 

 have induced him to appeat as my opponent, I propose, on this 

 occasion, to exhibit what I deem to be conclusive evidence of the 

 whirling character of his Providence tornado. 



But before proceeding with this evidence, it may be proper to 

 take some notice of his rejoinder, which, under the title of "addi- 

 tional objections," appears in the last number of this Journal. 

 [This Vol. p. 122.] The friends of strict scientific inquiry have 

 probably been disappointed in this paper; for he seems here' to 

 have abandoned the main question at issue, even as staked upon 

 his own allegations, and to have undertaken a petite guerre of 

 criticisms, which have little if any relation to the evidence on 

 which the issue depends. 



Dr. Hare says he had "endeavored to point out various errors 

 and inconsistencies in the theory of storms proposed by me, or 

 in the reasoning and assumed scientific principles on which that 

 theory had been advanced." Now it has never been my purpose 

 to "propose" or "advance" a " theory of storms" founded on 

 " reasoning and assumed scientific principles." This has, indeed, 

 been attempted by others ; with what success, is best known to 

 attentive inquirers. Whereas, I have mainly endeavored to ex- 

 hibit a matter-of-fact view of the actual phenomena of storms, 

 so far as relates to their progress, the violent rotative winds which 

 they exhibit, and their immediate efi"ects on the barometer. That 



* This Journal, 1840, Vol, xxxviii, p. 73-77. 



