Biographical Memoir of William C Redfield. 441 



The idea of whirlwinds is indeed much older than Redfield or 

 Reid, being as old as the writings of the Psalmist and the Pro- 

 phets ; and we safely admit further, tbat the doctrine of ocean gales 

 being sometimes of a rotary character, had been hinted at by 

 several writers, as hints of sucih a principle as gravitation had 

 long preceded the investigations of Newton ; but the honor of 

 having established, on satisfactory evidence, the rotary and pro- 

 gressive character of ocean storms, and determining their modes 

 •of action or laws, it is due alike to the memory of the departed, 

 and to our country's fame, to claim for William C. Redfield. 



Back of the laws that govern these ocean gales, as first deter- 

 mined by Redfield and confirmed by Dove, Reid, Piddington, 

 Thom, and other well known writers, lies a more profound inquiry, 

 How are these laws themselves to be accounted for ? What sets 

 the storm in motion, and gives it the whirlwind character, and at 

 the same time carries it forward, and m so definite a path ? What 

 makes it revolve always from right to left on the north side of the 

 equator, ^nd from left to right on the south side ? Why does its 

 violence increase towards the centre of the storm, and why is its 

 force there so tremendous ? Laws, it must be remembered are 

 facts, and merely express the modes in which nature acts : they 

 are themselves phenomena to be a^icountcd for. To which of the 

 ultimate causes of physical phenomena is their origin, in the 

 present case, to be traced ? Is it heat ? Is it electricity ? Is it 

 gravity ? Is it connected in some way with the grand system of 

 planetary motion ? Questions of this kind were pressed on Mr. 

 Redfield from various sources by those who assailed his theory. 

 At first he declined any attempts at their solution. He claimed 

 that the whirlwind character of storms;, and the laws which he 

 had assigned to them, are matters of fact, as established ;not only 

 by himself, but also by Reid, Milne, Dove, and Piddington ; that 

 never having attempted to establish a theory of winds, nor the 

 origin or first cause of storms, he had no occasion to go into these 

 inquiries, but had long held the proper inquiry to be, What are 

 storms ? not How are storms produced ? He however inciden- 

 tally, at different times, indicated his opinions on the ultimate 

 causes of storms. Electricity, Redfield entirely rejected as an 

 agent in the production of winds and storms, considering its 

 presence and development rather as a consequence than as a cause 

 of atmospheric changes. To heat he assigned only a limited and 

 local effect, denyifig its agency in producing either the great and 



