440 Biographical Memoir of William C. Redfield, 



probable than that its contents were then known to Redfield. In 

 1838, our friend found to his great joy a most able ally in Col. 

 Reid of the Royal English Engineers, then stationed in the island 

 of Barbadoes. The earliest inquiries of Col. Reid were based on 

 a violent hurricane, which occurred in that island in the year 

 1831. Searching for accounts of previous storms, he met with 

 nothing satisfactory until he fell in with Redfield's earliest paper 

 respecting the September gale of 1821, published in the American 

 Journal of Science. With the view of testing Redfield's doc- 

 trines, he submitted to the closest scrutiny the records which the 

 Barbadoes storm had left of its ravages, — an investigation which 

 ended in a perfect conviction that this storm was a progressive 

 whirlwind. A friendly correspondence was shortly afterwards 

 opened between these two congenial spirits, which resulted in an 

 intimacy unbroken except by the hand of death. Commodore 

 Perry, in the recent Report of his Japan Expedition, thus ex- 

 presses himself in an introductory note to Mr. Redfield's Essay 

 (the latest of his published works) on the Cyclones of the Pacific? 

 addressed to Commodore Perry, and forming a part of his volume. 

 " It was my good fortune (says the Commodore) to enjoy, for 

 many years, the friendly acquaintance of one as remarkable for 

 modesty and unassuming pretensions, as for laborious observation 

 and inquiry after knowledge. To him and to Gen. Reid of the 

 Royal Engineers of England (now governor of Malta) are navi- 

 gators mainly indebted for the discovery of a law which has 

 already contributed and will continue to contribute, greatly to the 

 safety of vessels traversing the ocean. It is true that subsequent 

 writers have furnished additional information on this subject ; but 

 to Redfield and Reid should be ascribed, the credit of the original 

 discovery of this undeniable law of nature and its application to 

 useful pnrposes ; and there can be nothing more beautiful, as 

 illustrative of the character of these two men, than the fact, well 

 known to myself; that notwithstanding their simultaneous obser- 

 vations and disdoveries, in different parts of the world, neither 

 claimed the slightest merit over the other, but each strove to give 

 to his co-worker in research the meed of superior success in the 

 great object of their joint labors ; and thus, without ever meeting, 

 a strong friendship was formed between them, growing out of 

 congenial aspirations for an honorable fame, and mutual admira- 

 tion of the generous and enlightened views exhibited by each 

 c^her ; and this ennobling feeling was kept alive to the last by 

 friendly correspondence." 



