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This somewhat outdated scholarly treatise is subtitled A Natural History of the Wind. The late Lyall Watson had a reputation for taking an iconoclastic viewpoint on everything he ever studied and certainly did so with this erudite extensively researched book. There are excellent chapters on the physics and geography of winds that explain the terms in common usage for describing winds- jet stream, trade winds, monsoon, chinook, Gulf Stream, hurricane, tornado, cyclone, typhoon, polar vortex, fronts. The physics of conventional layers of the atmosphere and the various types of clouds of great interest to aviators and meteorologists is explained in terms that anyone can grasp, and that are still accurate 35 years later. It is when Watson strays into the metaphysical realm, treating the atmosphere and winds as part of a living and breathing super-organism, Gaia, James Lovelock’s concept of Mother Earth, that the discussion becomes ephemeral, scientifically questionable and difficult to follow.
The chapter on the biology of wind is the best discussion of the early findings of organic compounds, and even intact viruses, bacteria and fungi in the mesosphere one hundred miles above earth. It is especially interesting, and leads logically to the panspermia hypothesis of the origin of life that Watson clearly endorsed. This posits that life began somewhere in vast interstellar or even intergalactic space, rather than in the earthbound primordial soup that most evolutionary biologists propose as the necessary milieu for life to begin. The panspermia hypothesis has been criticized, but had its advocates including the late Fred Hoyle and Stephen Hawking, and is still very much alive (pardon the pun) in some scientific circles.
When Watson swerves into the psychology of wind and claims to document very dramatic effects of ordinary winds on human physical and mental heath, the science does not stand up to even cursory examination, and correlation is confused with causation. And the Philosophy of Wind chapter becomes a tedious delineation of the names and attributes of winds from writers and philosophers from many generations and cultures- very esoteric but tiresome.
The list of 400 names, for winds in many languages from around the world is a useful guide and a testament to the breath of knowledge of the author.
There must be many more modern treatises on wind in the academic literature of atmospheric scientists, but there are probably none that integrate the science with the human experience as thoroughly as in this book. I have mixed feelings about recommending it, but certainly learned a lot by reading it.
The Passionate Reader 