New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-02-09

a FTER many thousands of years
~ of study the ancients finally de-
< "a cded that the wind was an ir-
responsible demon residing in
cave, who divided his time between Sleep
ing and displays of uncomfortable VIC
lence. In the last hundred years, how
ever, modern scientific observation and
scientific instruments have carried
knowledge of the wind a trife further
ahead. "The London Morning Post"
says:
"The first ray of hope was announced in
the year 1901, when Colonel Capper, of the
East India Service, put forward the theory
that storms were really great wind systems
having gyratory movement. The idea
seemed too good to be true, and the subject
dropped. In the year 1921 American
naval architect Redfield, noted how the
trees which had been blown down during the
passage of a storm formed regular curve
in the direction in which they lay and he
became convinced that the storm was of
rotary character. Fearing if he announced
his belief that his only reward would be
ridicule, he bded his time until another
dence, and in Slliman's Journal for April.
1881, he published paper demonstrating
the whirling and progressive character of
storms. Keen discussion arose out of the
discovery, some holding that the wind blew
along straight course, others that it made
a true circle.
The controversy was maintained through
many years, but in 184S Piddington pro-
posed to describe a storm wind as a cyclone
from a Greek word signifying incurving
like the coil Of snake, so that it would
mean neither straight line nor a perfect
circle. For years after this Investigators
concentrated their energies on stormfields
not suspecting that there was anything
gorthy of attention beyond the limits of
lie gale. In the Northern Hemisphere not
single instance had been met with or
storm wind revolving other than against
clock hands, fact which was of enormous
benefit. especially to seamen.
"About 1860 the late Sir Francis Gallon
extended the Investigation to all winds.
whether gales or not, and to everybodys
surprise it discovered that beyond the
stormtields there were extensive regions
over which the quieter winds revolved in
direction iuith clock hands. On the face
of it this was a flat contradiction of the
cyclonic view, but the mystery was soon
solved when it seen that the cyclone
formed an area in which the barometer
readings were lower, often very much lower,
than those in the reversed wind system
lying outside. Sir Francis Cation, finding
that the barometer, the wind, the weather
nd Oth al ~
those in cyclone, adopted for the new sys-
TEN the name anticyclone.
when the whole question was submitted
to examination it was evident that there
were numbers Of both cyclones and anti
cyclones moving hther and thither over
the earth's surface every day, and that the
one type cannot exist without the other
The anticyclonc, being region of the
heaviest atmosphere, we may regard as the
reservoir which supplies the cyclone, where
the air is at its lightest and the energy of
the cyclone depends upon the steepness of
the pressure gradient between the high and
low areas.
ALTHOUGH the wind circulates in one di-
rectlon IN the cyclone and in the opposite
direction in the anticyclone the law which
regulates the relation of the wind to the
pressure is the same in both cases The
knowledge of this law has served to save
fleets of ships and their crews It is very
simple: Face the wind and the lowest
barometer is away to the right and the
highest to the left. This is true in all cir
cumstances in the Northern Hemisphere,
the conditions being reversed beyond the
Equator"