380 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



OBSERVATIONS IN LAPLAND AND THIBET. 



IN a memoir presented to the French Academy, on June 3, M. Bra- 

 vais gives the results of some observations made in Lapland, according 

 to directions received from the Academy, upon the change which takes 

 place in the temperature of the air at various heights. The determi- 

 nations were made by means of balloons and thermometers. At Bos- 

 sekop, upon the western coast of Lapland, during the winter, the law 

 of the variation of the temperature of the air in the first 100 or 200 

 metres above the earth depends chiefly upon the wind prevailing in the 

 lower strata. With a sea-breeze, that is, between the southwest and 

 the north-northwest, which blows about five days in a month, the de- 

 crease is a little more rapid than the mean decrease in our own climate, 

 being about one degree for 90 or 100 metres. With a land-breeze, 

 that is, from the south to the east-southeast, the temperature of the air 

 at the earth falls, but increases upwards for about 100 metres, after 

 which it decreases somewhat more rapidly than it increased. 



Hourly meteorological observations made at Thibet, at an elevation 

 of 18,400 feet, by Lieut. Strachey, show that the curves followed very 

 nearly the same changes as they were observed to do in the lower re- 

 gions. London Athen&um, August. 



