70 Notices respecting New Books. 



Mr. Howard's present object is to bring in confirmation of the 

 views enunciated in his former work and in the papers already 

 alluded to, " the fact of a new period, observed \i a new locality, 

 and that differing so considerably in latitude from the former, as to 

 justify the inference that the periods are not confined to any part 

 of our island, but will be found, variously modified, in all." 



Referring to the papers above mentioned, Mr. Howard continues, 

 " For a variety of facts relating to atmospheric periodicity, stated in 

 a more elaborate way, I shall here briefly analyse the results of the 

 Ackworth Register, and apply them to my object; saying little 

 about the barometer, however, because the present observations on 

 this instrument, however constantly made from day to day, have not 

 the comprehensive character of those insisted on in my former pa- 

 pers ; which were taken from the face of a registering clock. The 

 Tables annexed to this paper, then, comprise the results of a daily 

 meteorological Register, kept at my instance, and with instruments 

 furnished by myself, at the Friends' Public School in Ackworth. I 

 have observations, not so continuous, made at my own residen.ce 

 there ; by collation with which in many parts I have satisfied myself 

 that I can depend on these, for the purpose to which they are here 

 applied, of deducing the differences of seasons from previous and 

 subsequent ones of like denomination, by comparison with each 

 other." 



We cannot follow the author through the particulars which con- 

 stitute his memoir, nor describe in detail the plates, all consisting 

 of curves or flexuous lines traced on rectangular scales, exhibiting 

 the range of the temperature, depth of rain, &c. for the eighteen 

 years composing the cycle. The following extract, explanatory of 

 one of them, will serve to indicate their nature : — 



" The dotted curve, or flexuous line in tig. 1. shows the variation from 

 year to year of the mean temperature, or average heat of the year, the mean 



declination ; and that there is also manifested in the lunar influence a gra- 

 dation of effects which operates through a cycle of eighteen years. 



Mr. Howard's researches on this subject had been commenced prior to 

 the first publication of his Climate of London, at the suggestion of Silvanus 

 Bevan, Jun., and had been further discussed in the second edition of that 

 work, published in 1833 : their results, as given in the paper now referred 

 to, recalled the attention of Sir John W. Lubbock to a paper by himself 

 in the Companion to the British Almanack for 1839, in which he had in- 

 serted certain results obtained with a view of ascertaining the influence of 

 the moon on the barometer and on the dew-point, some of which appeared 

 to indicate that the moon's position in declination influences the baro- 

 meter. Investigating the subject in a manner altogether different from 

 that adopted by Mr. Howard, but capable of more rigorous application, 

 his results, as stated in a paper of which an abstract is given in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Royal Society for March 25, 1841 (or Phil. Mag., Third 

 Series, vol. xviii.p. 555), seem to indicate an elevation of nearly one-tenth 

 of an inch for 17 degrees of declination. 



We have noticed Sir John W. Lubbock's discussion of the subject sim- 

 ply in relation to the history of this point in meteorological science; it has 

 no direct or particular bearing on the contents of the work before us. 



