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