192 



or prevented from any better connection. Whatever the use 

 may be, the invention is beautiful. Mons. Lomond has many 

 other curious machines, all the entire work of his own hands. 

 Mechanical invention seems to be in him a natural propensity." 



A Paper was read " On the Present State of Meteorology," 

 by Mr. Thomas Hopkins, M.B.M.S. 



In this paper the Author represented that certain recent 

 meteorological writers had abandoned the Hadleian theory, — 

 of winds being caused by the ascent of sun-heated air in the 

 tropical regions, and its passage through the upper atmo- 

 spheric space, to descend in the polar regions, and return to 

 the tropics. It was shown that great eiforts had been made 

 in different countries to discover the causes of those atmo- 

 spheric disturbances which often take place, withdut much 

 uniformity in the conclusions arrived at. From extensive 

 researches made by American observers, Commander Maury 

 had attempted to prove that near to each tropic there was the 

 crest of a large atmospheric wave, from which air flowed 

 down towards the equator on one side, and towards the pole 

 on the other ; and that light air ascended from the surface in 

 both the polar regions. Numerous English registrations have 

 been placed in the hands of Admiral Fitzroy, who has not, 

 like Commander Maury, promulgated a new hypothesis, but 

 has exhibited what he considers the general action of cyclonic 

 storms in middle latitudes ; this is, however, opposed to the 

 Hadleian theory. Sir J. F. Herschel, in his elaborate work 

 " On Meteorology," omits to notice the disturbing influence 

 of the liberated heat of condensing vapour on the gases ; but 

 he also abandons the old theory of winds, and attributes them 

 to ihe action of aqueous vapour in a new form. It is con- 

 tended by the writer, that the great cause of atmospheric 

 disturbance is to be found in the local heating of gases by the 

 liberated heat of condensing vapour. It is then pointed out 

 that the term " atmospheric wave " is founded on a false 



