THE COUBSE OF STORMS. 
141 
lia^^e no parallel in our own latitudes) offered an inviting field for 
inquiry, and it is likely enough that before Eedfield’s time, many 
had suspected what it was reserved for him to demonstrate. The 
very peculiar and striking phenomena observed in places over 
which the centre of the storm passed— first a hurricane of wdnd 
from a certain quarter, then a period of dead calm, and then a 
hurricane of wind from precisely the opposite quarter to that 
from ’which it first blew— these successive incidents must often 
have suggested the idea of a gigantic whirlwind passing over the 
spot. Indeed, we have it in evidence, that so long ago as the- 
year 1801, this idea had presented itself to one Colonel Capper, 
whose observations were made upon similar storms occurring on 
the coast of Coromandel. Nevertheless the credit belongs to 
Redfield of having proved by a comparison of actual observations 
at many different places, that the hurricanes of the West Indies 
are circular or rotatory storms. He did more than this. He 
showed that not only was there a gyratory movement of the air 
within the storm, but that the storm itself— say, the centre of 
it— moved over the earth’s surface in a very definite and 
determinate manner. 
The work commenced by Redfield was taken up by Lieut. - 
Col. Beid in this country. In the year 1838 Beid published a 
book on the Law of Storms.” In this he not only confirmed 
abundantly the conclusions of Bedfield with regard to the West 
Indian hurricanes, but showed also that the typhoons of the 
China Sea, and those of the Indian Ocean were governed by the 
same general laws. He also pointed out the remarkable fact, 
that whereas in the hurricanes of the northern hemisphere the 
wind circulates in a direction contrary to the hands of a watch, 
in those of the southern hemisphere the rotation is invariably 
in an opposite direction. North of the equator the rotation is 
retrograde ; south of that line it is direct. Beid also expresses 
his belief (as Col. Capper bad done before Mm) that many 
