This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
Descriptive Entry:
These papers consist of correspondence concerning temperature, wind, and weather reports of the Hudson Bay region, 1848; resolutions of condolence to Coffin's son,
Seldon J. Coffin, from students and alumni of Lafayette College after Coffin's death, 1873; newspaper articles; an illustration of James H. Coffin; and the original manuscript
of Winds of the Northern Hemisphere. Additional correspondence of James Henry Coffin exists elsewhere in the Smithsonian Institution Archives, especially in the Joseph
Henry Collection, Record Unit 7001, and Meteorological Project Records, Record Unit 60.
Historical Note:
James Henry Coffin (1806-1873) was a mathematician and meteorologist who specialized in the study of wind velocity. Coffin graduated from Amherst College in 1828 and
taught at various schools and colleges. Coffin began his meteorological studies in 1838. While at Williams College, 1840-1843, he installed an apparatus on Mount Greylock,
New York, for automatically recording the direction and the velocity of the wind. From 1846 until his death, Coffin held a chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at Lafayette
College. In 1846, he began his collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution in meteorology. Two of Coffin's studies, Winds of the Northern Hemisphere and Winds
of the Globe were published by the Institution in 1853 and 1875, respectively.
