Objections to Mr. Redfield's theory of storms : with some strictures upon his reasoning / by Robert Hare.

  • Hare, Robert, 1781-1858.
Date:
[1841?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Objections to Mr. Redfield's theory of storms : with some strictures upon his reasoning / by Robert Hare. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    OBJECTIONS, &c 1. Mr. Redfield's idea, that tornadoes and hurricanes are all whirlwinds, involves some improbabilities. It requires that, du- ring every hurricane, there should be blasts of a like degree of strength coinciding with every tangent which can be applied to a circle. Thirty two ships equidistant from the axis of gyration, and from each other, should each have the wind from a different point of the compass with nearly equal force. The only modifi- cation of which this view of the case admits, is that resulting from the progressive motion which tends to accelerate the wind on the side on which this motion concurs with that of the whirl, and to retard it upon the other side. Moreover, as respects any one station, the chances would be extremely unfavorable that the same hurricane should twice proceed from the same quarter! Yet in the course of time it would be felt, at any station, to pro- ceed from many different directions, if not from every point of the compass. 2. The fact that during the same storm different vessels various- ly situated are found to have the wind in as many different direc- tions, may be explained by the afflux of winds from all quarters to a common focal area, as well as by supposing them to be in- volved in a great whirlwind. Mr. Redfield has alleged that he observed proofs of gyration in the effects of the New Brunswick tornado; but I think that the survey of Bache and Espy, shows that it would be inconsistent with the facts to suppose such a mo- tion, unless as a contingent result, and that it could only be a cas- ual effect of the currents rushing towards the axis of the tornado. 3. Being of opinion that calorific expansion is inadequate to explain the afflux of wind towards the equator, the same author alleges that the space previously occupied by the atmosphere, so left behind is by the centrifugal action of the earth's rotation, con- stantly supplied from higher latitudes. 4. I presume that the meaning of this allegation is, that the cen- trifugal force communicated to the air at the equator by the di- urnal revolution of the earth, lessening the gravity of the air thus