HECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



197 



ELEMENTAEY METEOEOLOGY. 



The industry of the thinking portion of 

 mankind, as a matter of course, will cause 

 the different branches of science to advance 

 towards perfection. Already some sciences 

 liave become perfect to a degree that even 

 philosophers themselves are astonished at 

 the result of their own labours; and yet 

 were we allowed to see the progress of 

 another century, our present astonishment 

 would be as nothing in comparison with the 

 fresh truths that another generation must 

 undoubtedly unfold. If Ave look back upon 



Beeston Observatorj'. 



Astronomy, we are amazed that om* fore- 

 fathers should have considered our earth 

 as the central orb, around which the sun 

 and all the heavenly host revolved. In the 

 progress of time Astronomy advanced, and 

 the sun became the central body ; yet how 

 vague and imperfect were the guesses and 

 surmises of astronomical truths until the 

 immortal Newton, by his discovery of the 

 laws of gravitation, connected all the hea- 

 venly bodies together. By a knowledge of 



^ I 



these laws, distant planets have been weighed 

 and measured; by a knowledge that each 

 material body is influenced by, and influences 

 every other material body, new planets have 

 been discovered, and truths unfolded so vast 

 that but few are able to understand them. 



Photography has made rapid strides, 

 owing to the advanced state of the science of 

 Chemistry ; it was but yesterday that the sun 

 was first made to paint portraits and take 

 sketches from Nature. Daguerre discovered 

 that he could render a polished silver plate 

 so sensitive to light, that it would take a 

 picture of anything which was brought to a 

 focus upon it. Then it was ascertained that 

 even a thin film of collodion, spread upon 

 glass, coidd be made as sensitive as a silver 

 plate, if immersed in a bath containing a 

 sohition of nitrate of silver ; and that such 

 pictures could be copied indefinitely upon 

 paper. And lastly, M. Niepce announced 

 that he could bottle sunbeams, keep them 

 corked up for months, and then take a 

 picture without any light save that of the 

 bottled sunbeams ; that even a common print 

 placed in the sun imbibed sunbeams suffi- 

 cient to allow it to print a copy of itself in 

 the dark. Then sun pictures could be taken 

 so small that a lengthy document might be 

 contained on a piece of glass no larger than 

 a pin's head. Meteorology, of which we 

 have more especially to treat, has not at 

 present made such vast progress, although it 

 has received the attention of many careful 

 observers ; it must still be looked upon as a 

 new science — a science in the condition of 

 Astronomy before the law of gravitation had 

 been discovered — an advancing science, which 

 ere long must become as important a branch 

 of study as astronomy, geology, or natural 

 history. 



It is astonishing that so important a 



