254 Mr. RedfieWs Second Reply to Dr. Hare. 



ions were published must be quite evident." And he then ad- 

 duces the fragment of a sentence, '■'■Were it possible to preserve" 

 &c, [par. 46.] Now whether this passage be most remarkable 

 for the self-complacency or the pertinacious unfairness which it 

 exhibits, I shall leave unprejudiced readers to determine. That 

 my opinions have not changed since I read Dr. Hare's " objec- 

 tions,''^ the following quotation may serve to show ; and as it is 

 a portion of the very paragraph from which he has here quoted, 

 and part of the same article in which the alleged " denunciation" of 

 the meteorologists occurs, it could hardly have escaped his eye or 

 memory. I said, (this Journal for 1835; Vol. xxviii, p. 317,) " I 

 freely admit that heat is often an exciting as well as modify- 

 ing CAUSE of local WINDS, and other phenomena, and that it has 

 an incidental or subordinate action (though not such as is usu- 

 ally assigned) in the organization and development of stokms, 

 and that, in certain circumstances, it influences the interposi- 

 tions of the moving strata of the atmosphere. Its greatest direct 

 , influence is probably exhibited in what are called land and 

 SEA breezes, or in the diurnal modifications which are exhib- 

 ited by regular and general winds. But, so far from being the 

 great prime mover of the atmospheric currents, either in produ- 

 cing a supposed primary north and south current, or in any other 

 manner, I entertain no doubt, that if it were ' possible to pre- 

 serve [as Dr. H. then inaccurately quotes] the atmosphere at a 

 uniform temperature over the whole surface of the globe, the 

 general winds could not be less brisk, but would become more 

 constant and uniform than ever.' " And with all this before him, 

 he reasserts that 1 rejected the influence of heat ! If greater 

 injustice has been manifested in any scientific discussion of the 

 present century, it has not fallen under my notice. 



But as I may have been more frequently misunderstood on the 

 subject of the action of heat and rarefaction than perhaps any 

 other, I will avail myself of this opportunity to say, that in my 

 first paper (this Journal, Vol. xx, p. 18) I had quoted from Dr. 

 Hare a few sentences which, so far as they went, expressed my 

 notions then, and which I have never yet found any reason to 

 change ; and I concluded what I said then upon the subject of 

 heat in these words : " To create in the midst of these equable 

 ' winds or elsewhere, by the aid of rarefaction, a fanciful vacuum 

 ' into which the atmosphere from a distance of many miles, and 



