THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY 



JANUARY, 1835. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. On certain recent Meteoric Phenomena, Vicissitudes in 

 the Seasons, prevalent Disorders, fyc, contemporaneous, and in 

 supposed connection, with Volcanic Emanations. No. 5. By the 

 Rev. W. B. Clarke, A.M. F.G.S. &c. [Continued from VII. 630.] 



" Quid sit, unde sit, quare sit quod ipsum explorare et eruere sine 



universitatis inquisitione non possumus, cum ita cohaerentia, connexa, 

 concatenata sint. " — M. Minutius Felix, xvii. 



J-O reply, satisfactorily, to the question, " What caused the 

 prevalence of the violent westerly gales of the autumn and 

 winter of 1833?"* we must now pursue another line of 

 argument : and, I think, if it can be shown that these gales 

 have had their parallels in other years, and that, during those 

 years, the earth was volcanic ally affected at the time in ques- 

 tion, we may legitimately infer that, ceteris paribus, as they 

 are, the same conclusion holds good for the present enquiry. 

 It is on the testimony of many old and experienced sailors 

 (and, among others, pilots of Portsmouth) that the year 1809 

 is said to have afforded an exact resemblance to what occurred 

 in 1833.f A fleet was detained there, three months, by violent 

 westerly winds. In 1764, also, the wind was westerly for 



* By recorded observations of many years, and calculations, it appears 

 that south-west winds blow at London, Bristol, Lancaster, Glasgow, and 

 all over the west of Scotland and Ireland; and on the western coasts of 

 France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Holland as far as Rotterdam. Mr. 

 Kirwan has suggested (Irish Trans., viii.) that the prevalence of our south- 

 westerly winds, in the winter, arises from the opposite current between 

 the coast of Malabar and the Moluccas. Of eighty-four observations on 

 the winds at Villiers, in France, in Feb. 1833, there were only seven not 

 westerly or south-westerly. (Annates d 1 Horticulture de Paris, xii. 139.) 



f By a reference to what has gone before, it will be seen that 1809 was 

 a close year in the Arctic seas ; but 1808 an open year. In the latter year, 

 the weather was so hot in London, that, in the summer, the thermometer 

 rose to 93 1°. See, also, what is said above (VII. G28.) of New Granada. 



Vol. VIII. — No. 45. b 



