Nouvelle étude sur les Tempêtes, Cyclones, Trombes ou Tornados

Abstract

M. FAYE has quitted the position of dignified retirement to which he is entitled by his age and his scientific reputation, to do battle with the meteorologists. For the last twenty-five years, as he reminds us, he has struggled to ensure the recognition of his views concerning the origin and development of cyclones and tornados. At the advanced age of eighty-three, he again enters the arena of polemics and controversy, hoping to secure converts and supporters of the views that he has consistently held. We may offer our congratulations to the distinguished physicist on the vigour which such an undertaking demonstrates, but we could have wished that it had been exhibited in a manner better qualified to justify his reputation, and increase the number of his admirers. In the work which M. Faye has undertaken, of collecting his scattered writings and systematising the information which supports his views, he is perhaps supported by the belief that his theory is making headway. He quotes the remark of M. Sainte-Claire Deville, who, in the Academy, asserted with some warmth that M. Faye was entirely alone in his opinion, that there was not a meteorologist, not a sailor, who shared his views, and at that time the author admits that he was universally condemned, but adds, “If I were put on my trial to-day I should get some votes, though not enough to acquit me.” In this opinion we think M. Faye deceives himself—the views of American and German meteorologists are as much opposed to those he holds as when M. Deville made his cutting rejoinder.

Nouvelle étude sur les Tempêtes, Cyclones, Trombes ou Tornados.

Par M. Faye, Membre de l'Institut et du Bureau des Longitudes. Pp. vii + 142. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars et fils, 1897.)