Address on the Scientific Life and Labors of William C. Redfield, A. M.: First President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Delivered Before the Association at Their Annual Meeting in Montreal, August 14, 1857

Front Cover
E. Hayes, 1857 - 28 pages
 

Selected pages

Contents

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 3 - Since last we met, the Destroyer has been very busy in our ranks. Besides other beloved and respected associates, our earliest and our latest Presidents have suddenly vanished from our midst; — Redfield, who was the first to suggest the idea of the American Association on its present comprehensive plan, and the first to preside over its deliberations, and Bailey, who, we fondly hoped, would occupy the same distinguished position on the present occasion.
Page 7 - Mr. Redfield met with obstacles which in ordinary minds would have quenched the desire of intellectual progress. Yet every year added largely to his scientific acquisitions, and developed more fully his intellectual and moral energies. Meanwhile his active mind left its impress on the quiet community where he lived, in devising and carrying out various plans for advancing their social comfort and respectability, in the improvement and embellishment of their streets...
Page 28 - On three several Hurricanes of the American Seas, and their relation to the Northers so called of the Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Honduras, with Charts illustrating the same.
Page 14 - ... the axis, a descending spiral movement externally, and ascending internally. That the direction of revolution is always uniform, being from right to left, or against the sun, on the north side of the equator, and from left to right, or with the sun, on the south side. That the velocity of rotation increases from the margin towards the centre of the storm. That the whole body of air subjected to this spiral rotation is, at the same time, moving...
Page 4 - A life passed in the ordinary walks of business or in the quiet of philosophical research, affords little of that romantic incident which lends a charm to biography ; still we think the life of Mr. Redfield affords an interesting and instructive theme for contemplation in a threefold point of view, — as affording a marked example of the successful pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, — as happily illustrating the union in the same individual, of the man of science with the man of business,...
Page 19 - How are these laws themselves to be accounted for ? What sets the storm in motion, and gives it the whirlwind character, and at the same time carries it forward, and in so definite a path ? "What makes it revolve always from right to left on the north side of the equator, and from left to right on the south side ? Why does its violence increase towards the centre of the storm, and why is its force there so tremendous ? Laws, it must be remembered, are facts, and merely express the modes in which...
Page 25 - Sketch of the Geographical Rout of a Great Railway, by which it is proposed to connect the canals and navigable waters of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and the adjacent States and Territories opening thereby a free communication at all seasons of the year, between the Atlantic States and the Great Valley of the Mississippi. New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1830.
Page 24 - ... and mournful bereavements, still adding largely, year by year, to his intellectual stores ; or the man of business in the whirl of the great metropolis, loaded with onerous and responsible cares, giving every interval of leisure, and the seasons chiefly employed in pleasure or repose, to the study of the laws of nature ; or if permitted, as has been my privilege, to be a guest at the house fitted up to be the retreat of his old age, we see the library, the collections of natural history, the...
Page 19 - ... can be nothing more beautiful, as illustrative of the character of these two men, than the fact, well known to myself, that notwithstanding their simultaneous observations and discoveries, in different parts of the world, neither claimed the slightest merit over the other, but each strove to give to his co-worker in research the meed of superior success in the great object of their joint labors; and thus, without ever meeting, a strong friendship was formed between them, growing out of congenial...
Page 26 - London Nautical Magazine, 1838, p. 673; Jameson's Journal, Feb., April, 1838. 22. On the courses of Hurricanes, with notices of the Typhoons of the China Sea, and other Storms.

Bibliographic information