Mr. Redfteld^s Second Reply to Dr. Hare. 255 



' even many hundreds of miles, is to rush with all the fury of a 

 ' storm, is to do violence to the established principles of natural 

 ' science. To ascribe such effects to such a cause, is no better 

 ' warranted than to refer all storms to the direct influence of elec- 

 ' tricity and magnetism." — Can it be that this summary rejection 

 of " the influence" of " electricity" has occasioned the infliction 

 of the "Objections," "Strictures," and "Additional Objec- 

 tions ?" 



It seems to dissatisfy Dr. Hare, that I should have stated the 

 proper inquiry to be What are storms ? and not How are storms 

 produced ? He asks, " suppose that before ascertaining hoio fire is 

 produced, chemists had waited for an answer to the question, what 

 is fire, how much had science been retarded?" [47.J But, waiv- 

 ing the lack of analogy between fire and storms, suppose that in 

 treating of fire, one philosopher should mean by it the heat of 

 combustion ; another the heat and smoke, maintaining that the 

 fire depended on the latter ; while a third should view it as com- 

 prising both these, together with all the effects produced in the 

 surrounding air : would not the proper inquiry then be, What is 

 fire 1 — It appears evident that the laws and phenomena of storms 

 must be first ascertained and established, ere we can successfully 

 investigate their origin or primary causes. And this principle, I 

 trust, has hitherto guided rny inquiries. 



Dr. Hare appears unwilling to relinquish the grateful task of 

 rendering obnoxious the phrases " grand error" and " school of 

 meteorologists ;" which he honors with oft repeated notice. He 

 speaks also of "an endless controversy," — in which he has cho- 

 sen to volunteer, and which he prefers to carry on by criticisms 

 instead of abiding the issues of fact, even when these have been 

 presented by himself. He says. To follow me " in detail through 

 all the misunderstandings which have arisen, and which would 

 inevitably arise during a continued controversy, would be an 

 Ixion task." It maybe, that grace to acknowledge " the misun- 

 derstandings" which the controversy had brought to light, would 

 have tended greatly to shorten its duration. 



In paragraphs 49 to 52 Dr. Hare has expended his labors on 

 some superfluous suggestions in my earliest paper, which, more 

 than three years since were virtually withdrawn, and the public 

 notified of their relinquishment ;* but which, after all, seem at 



* See note prefixed to my article on hurricanes, Vol. xxxv, p. 201 of this Jour- 

 nal. Also in Nautical Magazine for January, 1839. 



