M7\ Redfielcfs Second Reply to Dr. Hare. 261 



We now arrive [par. 79] at Dr. Hare's own views of the ori- 

 gin of storms. Tliese, whether " thunder gusts, tornadoes, or 

 hurricanes," ..." he had considered, and still considers, to be 

 mainly owing to electric discharges between the earth and the 

 sky, or between one mass of clouds and another." (This Jour- 

 nal, Vol. XL, p. 44.) With this theory or hypothesis, I have no 

 particular concern in this defensive discussion ; and shall there- 

 fore make but few remarks on the subsequent portion of his pa- 

 per, which is mainly a reprint of matter which was subjoined to 

 his " objections and strictures," as these first appeared in the 

 Lond. Ed. and Dub. Phil. Magazine. 



In either "disruptive" or "convective" discharges of electri- 

 city, I discern nothing which can originate or maintain those 

 violent movements of the air which constitute a storm. If the 

 atoms of air are to perform the functions of electrified " pith 

 balls," or "pendula," and thus make a hurricane, (!) it would seem 

 necessary to place them in such space as would admit of their free 

 action, and v/here their motions could hardly constitute the wind 

 or movement in mass of a dense body of atmosphere which is un- 

 der a compression more than equal to twenty eight inches of the 

 barometric column. There can be no previous "blast of air" to 

 aid the " convection," as this convection is itself supposed to fur- 

 nish the blast. Nor has any "alternate" or vibratory motion in 

 the air, passing to and fro between the electrified surfaces of the 

 earth and the clouds, been discovered in storms ; which, on the 

 "convective" hypothesis, ought to constitute their chief violence. 

 Besides, the cloud itself, the probable result of the tornado or 

 storm, must first be produced, ere such " convection" could be 

 called into action. 



" The disruptive process," as "exemplified by lightning," ap- 

 pears wholly incompetent in itself or its causes " to produce con- 

 vective discharge upon a scale," equalling in constancy and me- 

 chanical effect the force which is "exhibited in tornadoes and 

 hurricanes." [81.] And if it were otherwise, the action of a 

 hurricane or tornado, on this hypothesis, must cease on the oc- 

 currence of a "disruptive" discharge ; but such discharges ap- 

 pear to cause no cessation in the mechanical force of these storms. 



The rising of " misty vapors resembling steam," from the sur- 

 face of a river, in a tornado, again comes to us transformed into 

 "the rising of the water:" [82] although, had the water thus 



