Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms | Page 3

theory appears, is, therefore, a result of the circumstances above stated, and of the author's present inability to enter into the minute details of a subject, which embraces in its range the whole visible creation.
In extending the theory to other phenomena, he has only fearlessly followed out the same principles which have conducted him to a knowledge of a disturbing cause, to which atmospheric storms owe their origin, and in doing so he has conferred with no one. For whatever of merit or of blame may therefore justly attach to these views, he alone is responsible. If he has charged the scientific with inconsistency, or with sometimes forgetting that the truth of their unnecessarily abstruse investigations depends on the truth of the data, he at least is conscientious; for he is too well aware that to provoke an unfavorable verdict by contending against such fearful odds, is not the surest way to either wealth or fame, or even to an acknowledgment of at least the mite, which he cannot but feel that he has contributed to the treasury of knowledge. That the scientific organisations of the day do tend to curb the aberrations of a fanciful philosophy, cannot be denied; but at the same time there is engendered such a slavish subordination as checks the originality of thought, and destroys that perfect freedom from the trammels of system, so necessary to success in the pursuit of truth. Of such an influence the author explicitly asserts his entire independence.
In thus introducing his theory, the reader is forewarned that he will not find it dressed in the fascinating garb of the popular literature of the day, whose chief characteristic is to promise much when possessing little. It is, however, a plant of the author's own raising, unpropped, unpruned, with none of the delicate tendrils or graceful festoons of the trellissed vine; yet he flatters himself that its roots are watered by the springs of truth, and hopes that he who is in quest of that, will not find, amidst its many clusters, any fruit to set his teeth on edge.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Extract from a letter from Professor Henry.
[2] This gentleman kindly offered to contribute from his own private means, to forward the publication, but he could do nothing officially without submitting the manuscript to three different censors. He who claims a new discovery, will seldom be satisfied to have it judged by men who are engaged in the same investigations, however pure and honorable they may be. Is this Institution adopting the best plan of aiding truth, in its struggles against error? Should any man sit as judge in his own trial? If there had been a powerful Institution to stand between Galileo and the scientific of his day, his doctrines would not have been condemned, and the world would have been fifty years more in advance.

MECHANICAL THEORY OF STORMS.

SECTION FIRST.
PRESENT STATE OF METEOROLOGY.
The present state of the science of which we are about to treat, cannot be better defined than in the words of the celebrated Humboldt, who has devoted a long life to the investigation of this department of Physics. He says: "The processes of the absorption of light, the liberation of heat, and the variations in the elastic and electric tension, and in the hygrometric condition of the vast a?rial ocean, are all so intimately connected together, that each individual meteorological process is modified by the action of all the others. The complicated nature of these disturbing causes, increases the difficulty of giving a full explanation of these involved meteorological phenomena; and likewise limits, or wholly precludes the possibility of that predetermination of atmospheric changes, which would be so important for horticulture, agriculture, and navigation, no less than for the comfort and enjoyment of life. Those who place the value of meteorology in this problematic species of prediction, rather than in the knowledge of the phenomena themselves, are firmly convinced that this branch of science, on account of which so many expeditions to distant mountainous regions have been undertaken, has not made any very considerable progress for centuries past. The confidence which they refuse to the physicist they yield to changes of the moon, and to certain days marked in the calender by the superstition of a by-gone age."
The charge thus skilfully repelled, contains, however, much truth; there has been no adequate return of the vast amount of labor and expense thus far devoted to this branch of knowledge. And it is not wonderful that the popular mind should expect a result which is so much in accordance with the wants of mankind. Who is there whose happiness, and health, and comfort, and safety, and prosperity, may not be more or less affected by reducing to law, the apparently irregular fluctuations of the weather, and the predetermination of the storm?