86 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



It passes into the atmosphere, and, moving with it, comes like 

 carbonic-acid gas into the neighborhood of plants deprived 

 of locomotion, to whose nutrition it contributes. There it is 

 fixed in its travels, falls to the ground in decayed vegetable 

 matters, forms arable land, and renders the soil fertile. The 

 ocean, therefore, is to be considered as the main reservoir of 

 nitrogenous compounds, and is, through the currents of the 

 atmosphere, the regulator of the annual distribution of nitro- 

 gen over the continents. 6 B, LXXX., 175. 



faye's theoky of storms. 



In his debate with M. Peslin, Faye has stated some of the 

 features of his views in regard to atmospheric storms as fol- 

 lows: First, cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, and 

 waterspouts are phenomena of one and the same mechanical 

 nature, and to all of which the same general explanatory- 

 theory will apply. Second, since the eye can embrace the 

 two latter phenomena in their totality, while the other three 

 classes of storms are spread over too vast an extent of terri- 

 tory for any one observer to seize all their features directly, 

 therefore we ought at first to begin our discussion and in- 

 A-estisfation with the consideration of tornadoes and water- 

 spouts, at least if we desire to base our conclusions upon 

 facts only. Third, the greater part of meteorologists attrib- 

 ute these phenomena to a vertical aspiration, whose existence 

 they gratuitously assume at the commencement of their in- 

 vestiiration. Under certain statical conditions of the atmos- 

 phere this aspiration can, according to them, develoj^ me- 

 chanical eifects of astonishing power. According to them 

 the gyration which is so characteristic of these storms is 

 only an incidental matter, resulting simply from the reaction 

 of the ground upon the horizontal currents, that ground be- 

 ing animated by its slow daily rotation. This reaction, which 

 changes by only 40 the direction of the lower trade-winds 

 in their long course, is made to describe many circumferences 

 in the space of a few j^ards and in the interval of a few sec- 

 onds, in the course of these pretended horizontal currents, 

 whose existence not a single observer has as yet noticed. 

 According to the theorists, these latter converge violently 

 from all sides toward the lower orifice of the waterspout or 

 the tornado, in order then to spring vertically through this 



