Defining the Wind is a wonderfully written account of one man's crusade to learn about what the wind is made of by tracing the history of the Beaufort Scale and its eccentric creator, Sir Francis Beaufort. It's as much about the language we use to describe our world as it is an exhortation to observe it more closely.
INTRODUCTION
September 6, 1996:
Hurricane Fran and Before
CHAPTER 1.
Beaufort of the Admiralty
CHAPTER 2.
In Search of the Wind
CHAPTER 3.
The Beaufort Scale, and
Who Wrote It, in a General Way
CHAPTER 4.
Reverse-Engineering the Wind
CHAPTER 5
"Nature, Rightly Questioned, Never Lies":
The Beaufort Scale, Nineteenth-Century Science,
and the Last Eighteenth-Century Man
CHAPTER 6.
Getting the Word Out: On the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the Dictionary,
and How Sir Francis Beaufort Slept with His Sister
CHAPTER 7.
Taking the Measure of the Wind:
The Fabulous Beaufortometer
CHAPTER 8.
A Picture of the Wind: Poetry, the Shipping Forecast,
and the Search for the North Shields Observer
CHAPTER 9,
Observation, a Panegyric: On the Beaufort Moment
APPENDIX A. Beaufort Scale Family Album
APPENDIX B. Explanation of the Plate
Describing the Rigging, &c.,
of a First-Rate Man of War
A NOTE ON THE SOURCES
PRIMARY SOURCES CONSULTED
NOTE ON ACCURACY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX