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On the Probable Relation between Magnetism and the Circula- 

 tion of the Atmosphere, especially the Trade Winds. By M. 

 F. Maury, Lieut. United States Navy. Communicated 

 to the Hon. W. A. Graham, Secretary of the Navy.* 



The discoveries of Faraday in dia-magnetism are calcu- 

 lated to guide me and to illuminate the darkness in which I 

 have found myself so often surrounded, as I endeavoured to 

 follow the " wind in his circuits" over the trackless wastes 

 of the ocean. 



Oxygen composes one-fifth part of the atmosphere and is 

 magnetic. 



The discovery that it is magnetic, presents itself to the 

 mind as a great physical fact which is to serve as the key- 

 stone for some of the most grand among the suhlime and 

 beautiful structures which philosophy is erecting for monu- 

 ments to the genius of the age. 



The facts elicited from the Wind and Current charts, had 

 already pointed me to the work of some agent whose office 

 in the grand system of atmospherical circulation was neither 

 understood nor recognized-t 



In following these facts to their legitimate conclusions, and 

 in studying all the phenomena that these charts have succes- 

 sively revealed touching the grand system of the distribution 

 of moisture and the circulation of the atmosphere over the 

 surface of the earth, I have often been induced to suspect 

 that some other agent besides heat and the rotation of the 

 earth on its axis, was concerned in the matter. 



Never suspecting the character of this agent, its foot- 

 prints have at least been detected ; and there is reason to 

 suppose that Faraday has discovered its lurking place to be 

 in the oxygen of the atmosphere. 



These charts had enabled me to trace from the belt of 

 calms, near the tropic of Cancer which extends entirely 

 across the seas, an efflux of air both to the north and to the 



* Having been favoured by the author with a copy of this interesting docu- 

 ment, already noticed by Professor Piazzi Smyth at page 103 of this volume of 

 the Journal, we now lay it before our readers. 



t The charts here referred to could not, from their size, be introduced into 

 the Philosophical Journal. 



