448 
WILLIAM FERREL. 
WILLIAM FERREL. 
Born January 29, 1817. Died September 18, 1891. 
[Read before the Society, October 15, 1892.] 
Among the many scientific men who have been drawn 
to Washington and have served the Government to the best 
of their ability no one has made for himself a more honor¬ 
able record than our distinguished fellow T -member, William 
Ferrel, whose death we were during the past year called 
upon to deplore. Ferrel became a member of the Philo¬ 
sophical Society in 1872, and his first communication to the 
Society, namely, “ On the Effects of Winds and Barometric 
Pressure on the Tides at Boston and on the Mean Level of the 
Sea,” illustrates the general tenor of the problems that occu¬ 
pied him during his whole life, namely, the mechanics of 
the atmosphere and the ocean. In this field of research 
Ferrel rapidly advanced from the general theory of tides 
and the general motions of ocean and air to specific phe¬ 
nomena, and from the study of an ideal perfect or friction¬ 
less fluid to the study of the actual air and water and the 
actual earth with all its irregularities. Many of our col¬ 
league’s papers are to be recognized as successful efforts to 
solve problems that had hitherto been considered beyond 
our reach. So completely did he examine his.field of study, 
so accurately did he select the important from the unim¬ 
portant forces at work in nature, that in every one of the 
numerous results formulated by him we recognize that a 
distinct advance has been made from which there will be 
no need of retreat in future years. In the study of such 
complex phenomena as the motions of the ocean and air 
we have to consider the presence of some eight or ten factors, 
either one of which may become at times of preponderating 
importance. At some distant epoch man may be able to 
effect a general solution of equations that shall express the 
simultaneous influence of all these diverse forces, but at the 
present time we are not able to even write out the equations, 
much less to resolve them. Under these conditions the sue- 
