Outlines of a mechanical theory of storms

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CONTAINING THE TRUE LAW OF LUNAR INFLUENCE, WITH PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS TO THE NAVIGATOR, TO ENABLE HIM APPROXIMATELY TO CALCULATE THE COMING CHANGES OF THE WIND AND WEATHER, FOR ANY GIVEN DAY, AND FOR ANY PART OF THE OCEAN.
Ἡ δε μεσοτης εν πασιν ασφαλεϛερα
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY, AND 16 LITTLE BRITAIN, LONDON. 1854.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by T. BASSNETT, In the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New York.
On presenting to the public a work of this novel character, overstepping, as it does, the barriers erected by modern systems to the further progress of knowledge, a few words of explanation may not be inappropriate. Early imbued with a desire to understand the causes of natural phenomena, the author devoured with avidity the interpretations contained in the elementary works of orthodox science, until reason and observation rendered him dissatisfied with the repast. To him it appeared that there was an evident tendency in scholastic instruction, to make the knowledge of nature inaccessible to the many, that the world might be made more dependent on the few; while many of the established principles , on which the learned rested, seemed to be at variance with the simplicity and consistency of truth. Thus situated, he ventured to think for himself, and looking back on the history of the past, and finding so many cases in which the philosophy of to-day was supplanted by a different system on the morrow, he was led to suspect the possibility of future revolutions, and was thus determined to be no longer embarrassed by previous systems, nor deterred by opinions however learned, which conflicted with a rational recognition of the mechanical nature of all physical phenomena.