Yards Moving Forward - GL Group

PHOTO: NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
THE GL WIND BEAUFORT SCALE – EDITION 2006
Wind – a Whim of
the Gods
When Sir Francis Beaufort developed his wind scale, it was the
culmination of contemporary knowledge on this force of nature
The most influential thinkers in Greek philosophy had
attempted to unravel the secret of the winds. Aristotle
(384-322) thought that the wind was a kind of vapour.
The sun made the earth breathe, so that a moist breath caused
the rain, whilst a dry exhalation gave rise to the wind. Finally,
the Greeks decided that the winds were heavenly manifestations
and created a pantheon of wind gods. The belief that
winds and storms – or a lack thereof – were whims of the gods
lasted for a long time. This only changed with the advent of
the scientific revolution in the 17th century.
The first systematic attempt to understand the wind was
made by the British astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742),
a good friend of Isaac Newton (1643-1727). In 1676, Halley
journeyed to the South Atlantic, with a view to conducting
astronomical and meteorological observations on the island
of St. Helena over a period of two years. Halley was fascinated
by the phenomenon that the winds, which seemed to blow
completely chaotically, were really subject to an overarching
natural law after all. The Arabs and Romans had already
noticed that the wind generally blows from Africa to India for
six months and then reverses direction for the next halfyear.
These seasonal winds were called monsoons, a word derived
from the Arabian “mausim” for season. Another type that was
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: (1774 - 1857)
Besides his biography of Francis Beaufort, Scott Huler has also written
about the Cleveland Browns football team and the NASCAR automobile
race. He lives with his family North Carolina, and his work may be heard
regularly on NPR (National Public Radio).
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