Additional objections to Redfield's theory of storms / by Robert Hare.

  • Hare, Robert, 1781-1858.
Date:
[1842?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Additional objections to Redfield's theory of storms / 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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    northeaster brings in a crowd of vessels having only to complain of the violence not of the direction of the wind. 71. It has been assumed, that a storm whirling to the left and travelling northeasterly, must, at stations passing nearly under the centre, first blow as a southeaster and afterwards gradually change to a northwester. Meanwhile on the southeastern or left limb it will blow only from the southwest, and on the north- western or right limb it will blow only from the northwest. Con- sistently, when the storm travels from southeast to northwest, as hurricanes are represented to travel in proceeding from the sphere of their origin in the West Indies to the coast of Ninth America, it will at stations within a certain distance of a line described by the centre, blow from the northeast first. On the southwestern limb it will blow first as a northwester ; on the northeastern limb as a southeaster. Moreover, that on the last mentioned limb the greatest violence will occur, since the general motion of the whirl- wind will there cooperate with that of the whirl. Yet in the following paragraph Mr. Redfield informs us, (this Journal, Vol. xxv, j). 128,) that In the West ///dies, hurricanes begin to blow from a northern quarter of the horizon, and then changing to west and round to a southern quarter and then their fury is over.1 72. This account of the direction of the wind in West India hurricanes agrees with that quoted by Espy from Edwards's His- tory of Jamaica, Vol. 3d : All hurricanes begin from the north, veer back to west-nort/noest, west, and south-southwest, and when got to southeast, the foul weather breaks up. 73. It must be evident, as stated among my objections,''1 that when a whirl is first originated, whether it describe a helix, as would result from its progressive circular motion, or a circle, as represented by Mr. Redfield in his charts* it must at thirty two stations equidistant from each other and the centre of gyration, blow from as many points of the compass. However, when once underway, it being granted that the whirling is always from right to left, evidently at any station near the line described by the centre, it will begin to blow at right angles to that line or from the northeast. As the centre advances this wind would gradually subside, and, after the centre should have gone by, it would be- gin to blow from the southwest with increasing force till the se- * Franklin Journal, Vol. 19, p. 120.