Biographical Memoir of William C. Redfield. 445 



ticularly the subject of my remarks, wliose logical powers I have 

 always admired, I have almost regretted that he did not adhere 

 to the ground he originally took, namely, that he had not under- 

 taken to explain the reason why the winds blow, but only to 

 show hoiv they blow. So far was matter of fact: all beyond 

 was hypothesis. His facts are impregnable : his hypothesis 

 doubtful. The conclusions derived legitimately from these facts 

 constitute the laws of storms ; and being, as we believe, like the 

 other laws of nature immutable, the name indissolubly associated 

 with their discovery, acquires a fame alike imperishable. Eed- 

 field might therefore have safely stopped where ISTewton stopped, 

 " Newton (says one of his biographers) stopped short at the last 

 fact which he could discover in the solar system — that all bodies 

 were deflected to all other bodies, according to certain regula- 

 tions of distance and quantity of matter. When told that he had 

 done nothing in philosophy ; that he had discovered no cause • 

 and that, to merit any praise, he must shovv how this deflection 

 was produced ; he said, he knew no more than he had told them ; 

 that he saw nothing causing this deflection ; and was i-ontented 

 with having described it so exactly, that a good mathematician 

 could now make tables of the planetary motions, as accurate as 

 he pleased, and hoped in a few years to have every purpose of 

 navigation and philosophical curiosity completely answered." 



Various other contributions to science of our departed friend 

 must, for want of space, be passed by with hardly a notice. Such 

 are his published meteorological essays* — his reports of meteor- 

 ological observations, which contain many original hints of much 

 value^his paper on the currents of the Atlantic — and his resear- 

 ches in geology, which occupied much of his attention during 

 the latter years of his life — all of which speak the skilful observer, 

 the judicious philosopher, the lover of science, the lover of his 

 country and of his kind. His meteorological researches, although 

 they engrossed a large share of the hours he could redeem from 

 the urgent claims of business, did not prevent his taking a strong 

 interest in other branches of science. He attentively Avatched the 

 progress of knowledge in various departments, but Geology had 

 for him special attractions. His powers of observation were 

 early employed, even in his pedestrian tour to Ohio in 1810, in 

 noting facts which appeared to him then to be unaccounted for 



* Originally prepared for Blunt's Coast Pilot. . 



