STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 113 



or if they do, they are not electric currents ; and conversely, if they are 

 electric currents, then similar barometers must attract and coalesce with 

 similar, and repel dissimilar. In other words, a high barometer must 

 attract a high barometer, aud a low barometer a low ; but a high and a 

 low must repel each other. 



About three months ago the " Weather Maps " for the month of Au- 

 gust, published by the War Department, and which they kindly send me, 

 came to hand. In these maps, for the first and only time, the tracks of 

 both the high and low barometers over the continent are laid down, and 

 their movements delineated for that month. This gave me the long- 

 desired opportunity for determining the electric character of atmospheric- 

 pressure. It was an indescribable pleasure and delight to find the facts 

 to be exactly as the theory suggested they must be, namely, similar 

 barometers attracting, and dissimilar repelling, each other. 



I intendedto present with this paper copies of the series of maps by 

 which the theory was first verified by me, but I could not si)are the ori- 

 ginals, and had not time to make copies. But any one can make the veri- 

 fication who has the War Department Weather Maps for Aug. 1873. ^^.ke 

 any outline map of North America, and copy on it, from Map No. 2, the 

 focal points of low barometers, or centers of storms, Nos. 3, 4, and 5, 

 with the date and time of observation. Copy similarly the focal center 

 of high barometer No. i, from Map No. 4; then from the synchronous 

 observations of both high and low barometers, by drawing straight lines 

 between them. Take similar outline maps, and draw successively all the 

 synchronous high and low barometers. Nos. 2 and 3 of high barometer 

 are evidently the same barometer. No. 2, passing beyond observation 

 on the 1 8th, west of Newfoundland, it swept by a curve west through 

 Labrador, and reappeared on the 20th in the lower valley of the Ottawa, 

 Ontario, as No. 3. High barometers Nos. 4 and 5, evidently, are also 

 one and the same. No. 4 passed from observation iii Labrador, August 

 25th, swept around north, and reappeared as No. 5, August 26th, north 

 of Lake Superior. Draw a curve to represent the probable track of both 

 while beyond observation. 



Nos. 8 and 9 of low barometers are evidently the same. No. 8 sweep- 

 ing around beyond observation in northwestern Manitoba. When these 

 maps, so drawn, are compared, the conviction is irresistibly forced upon 

 us, from even a superficial examination, of the truth of the theory. For 

 instance, the position of the high barometer and its repulsive force were 

 so effective, in two instances, that it drove the low barometer back to its 

 source, making it describe an ellipse. 



The terrible hurricane of August 23d, 24th and 25th, also drove back 

 the high barometer No 4 toward its source. The track of this hurricane, 

 driven like a wedge between the Atlantic high barometer and the Cana- 

 dian, shows not only how its movement was retarded by this resistance, 

 but plainly indicates the cause of its terrific energy. The Florida hurri- 

 cane of the 3rd to the 6th of October shows the same phenomena under 



.similar circumstances. 



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