60 Dr Brewster on the Mean Temperature of the Equator. 



East. I shall be anxious to hear that it falls into the hands of 

 those who are capable of appreciating and examining it. 



We have been promised a selection from these bones for the 

 museum of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and we may 

 therefore have an opportunity of resuming this curious sub* 

 ject 



Art. XII.— 0« the Mean Temperature of t/ie Equator, as 

 deduced Jrom Observations made at Prince of Wales'^s Island, 

 Singapore, and Malacca. By David Brewster, LL. D. 

 F. R. S. Lond. and Sec. R. S.^Ed. 



I HAVE already had occasion to treat of the subject of tlie 

 temperature of the equator in consequence of Mr Atkinson's 

 attempt to controvert the deductions of Baron Humboldt, , 

 which I had used as the data for my climateric formulae, and 

 to fix the tropical heat at a much higher degree than had been 

 done by any preceding author. 



From observations made at various places in Ceylon and 

 Batavia, I was led to conclude that the mean temperature of 

 the equator did not exceed 80|°. * Since that time I have 

 taken measures to obtain observations made still nearer the 

 equator, and I have been in expectation of receiving them 

 through the kindness of a correspondent in India, whose zeal 

 for the promotion of science is unbounded. 



I observe, however, in the last part of the Transactions of 

 the Royal Asiatic Society -f* a series of meteorological obser- 



• See this Journal, No. xi. p. 117 — 120. In the same Number, p. 136, 

 we liave given an abstract of Baron Humboldt's own able defence of his de- 

 ductions. 



t We earnestly hope that Mr Colebrooke, the distinguished director of 

 this flourishing institution, will use the influence which he possesses in 

 recommending the establishment of meteorological registers in different 

 parts of India, and in collecting and publishing in the Transactions of the 

 Astatic Society the various meteorological observations which are made 

 throughout our extensive dominions in the East, especially those made near 

 the equator. The council of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta have, we ob- 

 serve, taken up this subject, and we expect much from the enlight- 

 ened zeal of its members. As the subject of climate is so intimately 

 connected with the diseases of the human frame, we take the liberty of 



