Tornadoes

Abstract

THIS is a book that will hardly enhance the reputation of its author. Despite his assurance (which of course will not be questioned) that he has endeavoured throughout to be absolutely unprejudiced, its apparent aim is not so much to set before the reader a concise description of tornado phenomena as to controvert the views put forward by Ferrel and others relative to their mechanical and physical constitution, and to substitute for these certain other speculations (we can scarcely call them a theory) which appear to the author to have the merit of greater probability. Prof. Hazen does not, indeed, restrict his condemnation to Ferrel's theory of tornadoes and thunder-storms. As a root-and-branch reformer, he finds himself in opposition to the majority of those who, during the last quarter of a century, have built up the fabric of modern meteorology, for, while he speaks with deference of “the epoch-making experiments of Mayer [sic] and Joule,” he appears to regard as inapplicable to the movements of the atmosphere those laws of thermodynamics which are based on the results of Joule's labours. Were it the practice of scientific authors, in imitation of romance-writers, to head their chapters with quotations appropriate to the subject-matter, chapter v. of this treatise, more especially, might be fitly introduced with the well-known lines from “Faust”:—

The Tornado.

By H. A. Hazen, Assistant Professor of the United States Signal Office. (New York: Hodges, 1890.)