SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE SI 
it ought to blow toward the pole that is nearest to it, 
and advancing in that direction only, in order to 
reach every place, traversing dry countries or ex- 
tensive seas, it ought then to render the sky serene 
or stormy. If the influence of the moon on the 
weather is denied, it is only that it may be referred 
to its phases, but its position in the ecliptic is re- 
garded as affording probabilities much nearer the 
truth.* 
In each of these annuals Lamarck took great care 
to avoid making any positive predictions. ‘ No one,” 
he says, “ could make these predictions without deceiv- 
ing himself and abusing the confidence of persons who 
might place reliance on them.” He only intended to 
propose simple probabilities. 
After the publication of the first of these annuals, 
at the request of Lamarck, who had made it the sub- 
ject of a memoir read to the Institute in 1800 (g 
ventose, l’an IX.), Chaptal, Minister of the Interior, 
thought it well to establish in France a regular cor- 
respondence of meteorological observations made 
daily at different points remote from each other, and 
he conferred the direction of it on Lamarck. This 
system of meteorological reports lasted but a short 
time, and was not maintained by Chaptal’s successor. 
After three of these annual reports had appeared, 
Lamarck rather suddenly stopped publishing them, 
and an incident occurred in connection with their 
cessation which led to the story that he had suffered 
ill treatment and neglect from Napoleon I. 
* ‘© On the Influence of the Moon on the Earth’s Atmosphere,” 
Journal de Physique, prairial, l’an VI. (1798). 
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