264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



worker and investigator in electricity, magnetism, optics, crystallog- 

 raphy, and in such practical subjects as measures and weights, and 

 the metric system of civilized nations. Among other discoveries, he 

 also first recognized the presence of a secondary electric current in a 

 metallic wire, at the moment that the circuit of the principal current is 

 completed. The large number of physical instruments originated and 

 devised by his genius and skill, among them his polarization apparatus, 

 his differential inductor, his rotating polariscope, and numerous other 

 important devices, bear evidence of his many contributions to the ad- 

 vancement of physics. 



But it was to meteorological, hydrographical, and climatological 

 inquiries that Dove devoted his full strength and the great powers of 

 his mind ; and by his comprehensive and well-directed labors he has 

 written his name in imperishable characters on the records of science. 

 His fame rests preeminently on the successful inquiries which he car- 

 ried out with a view to the discovery of the laws regulating atmos- 

 pheric phenomena, which apparently are under no law whatever, and 

 on his isothermals and isabnormals of temperature for the surface of 

 the globe, in which labors one can not sufficiently admire the breadth 

 of view which sustained and animated him as an explorer, during the 

 long, toilsome years spent in, and requisite to, their preparation. 

 Equally charactei'ized by philosophic depth and by what really seemed 

 a love for the drudgery of detail, even to profuseness, when such 

 drudgery appeared necessary or desirable in attaining his object, are 

 his various works on winds, the manner of their veering, and their 

 relations to atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, and rainfall, 

 and the important bearings of the results on the climatology of the 

 globe ; and on the relation of the variations of temperature to the 

 development of plants and their life and distribution. The origin of 

 storms and their connection with the general circulation of the atmos- 

 phere has been much elucidated by Dove's comprehensive and exact 

 researches ; and the " laws of the rotation of the winds and storms," 

 of so vast importance to the mariner, are for ever linked with his 

 name. 



Alexander von Humboldt had originated the Prussian Meteorologi- 

 cal Bureau, and Dove, since 1848 its director, gradually organized, 

 extended, and summarized throughout Germany, the valuable system 

 of meteorological observations and publications, since widely and suc- 

 cessfully accepted and introduced in most civilized countries. 



When we consider the condition in which Dove found man's 

 knowledge of the weather, and the large accessions and development 

 it received from his hand, the breadth of his views, and the well- 

 'directed patience rising into high genius, with which his mind was 

 inspired and his researches were pursued, there can be but one opinion, 

 that these give Dove claims, which no other physicist can compete 

 with, to be styled " the Father of Meteorology." 



