184 Analysis of Scientific Books. 
for the indications of such an instrument would be altogether 
fallacious. After the description of the above contrivances, he 
concludes, ‘* Such is the complete apparatus required for keep- 
ing a meteorological register.” We have already given our 
reasons of dissent to this conclusion, with regard to the com- 
pleteness of his apparatus, but we willingly concur in the 
following observations : 
It cannot be expected that registers of the weather will possess much 
value, so long as they are kept merely as objects of curiosity. Like astro- 
nomical observations, as now conducted, they should no longer be left to 
the chance of individual pursuit. ‘They would require to be unremittingly 
prosecuted in all variety of situations, and at the public expense. Proper 
sets of meteorological instruments should be placed not only in the regular 
observatories, but sent to the different forts and light-houses, both at home 
and at our principal foreign stations. They might also be distributed among 
the ships employed in discovery, or engaged on distant voyages. The cost 
of providing those instruments would be comparatively trifling, and the 
charge incurred, by keeping registers ona regular and digested plan, might 
shrink to nothing in the national expenditure*.” 
The sequel of this discourse on meteorology is occupied with 
wind; clouds, comprehending Hutton’s hypothesis of rain, but 
no allusion to the valuable classification and nomenclature of 
Mr. Luke Howard, to whom meteorology is so eminently in- 
debted ; and optical phenomena, with supplemental quotations 
on the climate of the Arctic and Torrid zones. 
The account which we have now given of Mr. Leslie’s article 
on meteorology will enable our readers to judge of its general 
merits. Its prevailing feature is a display, in curious panegyrics, 
of Mr. Leslie’s contrivances, and an unaccountable suppression 
or depreciation of the inventions of others, many of them 
certainly not inferior tohis own. Van Helmont’s air-thermo- 
meter has become a philosophical Proteus in his plastic hands. 
It is a differential thermometer, a hygrometer, a photometer, a 
diaphanometer, and an @thrioscope. His account, too, of these 
various modifications has more the air of a tradesman’s adver- 
tisement, than of a philosopher’s research ; and its perusal by 
an indifferent reader would lead him to suppose that Mr. Leslie 
made the above instruments with his own hands, and sold them 
for his own profit. Lastly, the style is singularly artificial and 
inflated, affording a perfect contrast to the classical simplicity 
of his predecessors in the professorial chair. 
After all, the most interesting relation of the atmosphere, in a 
meteorological point of view, is undoubtedly the hygrometric. 
Now, Mr. Leslie’s instrument, (of which, he says, ‘* it would 
essentially contribute to the advancement of meteorological 
science, if the hygrometer which we have described were in- 
troduced into general practice. This adoption cannot be very 
* P. 354, 
