PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



261 



Tlie 7no(]e followed in taking the temperature of the sea at the place mentioned, was as 

 follows: — a good thermometer, the bulb of which was inserted into a wide-mouthed glass vessel, 

 was suspended from a fishing-rod, and sunk into the water to the depth of six feet, and 

 allowed to remain there for a few minutes; on its removal the degree indicated was accurately 

 recorded. While alluding to the instrument employed, I may avail myself of this opportunity 

 of congratulating the Society on having recently obtained a set of trustworthy instruments, 

 tested and approved by Mr. Glaisher, and compared with standard ones used at the Eoyal 

 Observatory. The thermometer and hygrometer employed by ;he Scarborough Society were 

 manufactured by Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, and are similar to those supplied to the Arctic 

 E.Kpedition sent out under the command of Sir E. Belcher, in 1852. The barometer was 

 manufactured by Barrow, and is of the same kind as that employed by the Board of Ordnance 

 and the lion, the East India Compan)', and also by the Meteorological Society. 



"Whatever therefore can be done, so far as regards the procuring reliable instruments for 

 meteorological observations, the Society has done; and it is satisfactory to know that when 

 carefully used, as in the instance to which I am now about to refer, accurate data may be 

 obtained upon a subject so intimately affecting not only the different operations of agriculture, 

 navigation, and engineering, but particularly the health and comfort of ourselves and our 

 families. It is impossible even to imagine that at the present time any intelligent or well- 

 educated person can doubt the connection existing between climate and the health or sickness 

 of a locality. From a very earl)' period — for the writings of Hippocrates abound with references 

 to the influence of climate, air, etc. — it has been known to exercise a power over disease, either 

 in modifying or augmenting its character generally, or certain of its more manifest symptoms. 

 Nor has its influence in more recent times been overlooked: the writings of Sir James Clark, 

 Sir Henry Holland, Dr. Martin, (Ventnor, Isle of Wight,) and Dr. Davy, with a host of others, 

 have drawn both public as well as professional attention to the influence of climate on health 

 and disease. In referring, however, to these authorities, the invaluable Keports of the Registrar 

 General must not be forgotten, which point out a closer connection between meteorological and 

 nosological phenomena than is generally apprehended. These reports present a body of valuable 

 matter, well worthy the studious attention of every skilled and philosophical practitioner in 

 physic or surgery. The animal and vegetable kingdom suffer together, and in proof of this 

 statement, I may refer to the existence of certain epidemics at the same period that the potatoe 

 disease was prevailing. 



But to return; The Temperature of the Sea at Scarborough, compared with that of the 

 atmosphere at the same place, is set forth in the following 



TABLE. 



