Of the conclusion arrived at by a committee of the Academy of Sciences of France, agreeably to which, tornados are caused by heat : while, agreeably to Peltier's report to the same body, certain insurers had been obliged to pay for a tornado as an electrical storm, also, abstracts from Peltier's report : moreover, quotations shewing the ignorance which existed in the Academy respecting the nature and causes of the meteor in question, prior to the publication ascribing it to a convective discharge of electricity : with objections to the opinions of Peltier and Espy / by Dr. Hare.

  • Hare, Robert, 1781-1858.
Date:
1852
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Of the conclusion arrived at by a committee of the Academy of Sciences of France, agreeably to which, tornados are caused by heat : while, agreeably to Peltier's report to the same body, certain insurers had been obliged to pay for a tornado as an electrical storm, also, abstracts from Peltier's report : moreover, quotations shewing the ignorance which existed in the Academy respecting the nature and causes of the meteor in question, prior to the publication ascribing it to a convective discharge of electricity : with objections to the opinions of Peltier and Espy / by Dr. Hare. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Bahinef's '‘^Conclusions “In conclusion, Mr. Espy’s communication contains a great number of well observed an well described facts. His theory, in the present state of science, alone accounts for tb phenomena, and, when completed, as Mr. Espy intends, by the study of the action of elc' tricity when it intervenes, will leave nothing to be desired. In a word, for physical gcogr: phy, agriculture, navigation, mid meteorology, it gives us new explanations, indicatioi useful for ulterior researches, fmd redresses many accredited errors. “The committee expresses then the wish, that Mr. Espy should be placed by the goven ment of the United States in a position to continue his important investigations, an to complete his theory, already so remai’kable, by means of all the observations and a experiments which the deductions even of his theory may suggest to him, in a vast coui try, where enlightened men are not w’anting to science, and which is besides, as it wer the home of these fearful meteors. “The work of Mr. Espy causes us to feel the necessity of undertaking a retrospcctii examination of the numerous documents already collected in Europe, to arrange then and draw from them deductions which they can furnish, and more especially at the prcsci period, when the diluvial rains, which have ravaged the south-east of France, have dircc ed attention to all the possible causes of similar phenomena. Consequently, the con inittee proposes to the Academy to give its approbation to the labors of Mr. Espy, and I solicit him to continue his researches, and especially to try to ascertain the influence whic electricity exerts in these great phenomena, of which a complete theory will be one of tb most precious acquisitions of modern science.” Mr. Espy is to study the action of electricity '‘'when it intervenesS C .course, it was only a visiter, according to Babinet’s opinions. Such was the state of knowledge respecting tornados in 1836, whe I handed to Arago and other members, copies of my pamphlet, in whic I attributed those awful meteors to a convective discharge of electricit in these words: ‘After maturely considering all the facts^ I am led to su^ gest that a tornado is the effect ff an electrified current of air superseding the more usual means of discharge between the earth and clouds in thoi sparks or fiashes which we call lightning. While the air is thus carrie up by the concurrent influence of electrical attraction and the reaction ( its own previously constrained elasticity, other bodies are lifted both b electrical attraction and the blast of air to which it gives rise. Henc houses within the sphere of excitement are burst by the expansion of tb air which they contain, their walls being thrown outwards and their roolj carried away, while by the afllux of the atmosphere requisite to the re| storation of its equilibrium, trees, houses, and other bodies are throw,! inwards towards the vertical current from before as well as from eillifi side.’’ ’ This rationale of the tornado had been in the hands of the academician’ and the library of the Academy for about three years, when, agreeabl, to an article published at Paris, on July 17th, 1839, in the Journal dt. Debats, that the tremendous tornado occurred about the last of the prececl ing month, at Chatenay, which led to the claim upon certain insurers, t which reference has been above made, as inducing an examination am report by Peltier, and a decision in favor of the electrical character of th storm. From the following narrative, translated from his report, it will be seei that Peltier adopted my opinion, that a tornado is the effect of an elec trical discharge. “Up to this time there hail been thunder continually rumbling within the second thundr ^ cloud, when suddenly an under portion of this cloud descending and entering into con J