= 
1825.] 
water, and a very small portion of air, 
not enough, however, to create any dif- 
ference between the specific gravity of 
his own body and that of the water. This 
is confirmed by the two facts,—l1st, that 
of his sometimes rising from the bottom 
of his own accord, when dead; and 
secondly, that when he does not so rise, 
he may, according to Mr. Scoresby’s 
own account, be drawn up by the har- 
poon line: and I can hardly conceive 
how a line of the size of a man’s finger 
can take in tow, and lift from the bot- 
tom, a weight equal to sixty men of war. 
These two facts, of Mr. Scoresby’s own 
stating, prove that he is in error,—be- 
cause what he says is impossible to be 
performed; and therefore the perpen- 
dicular pressure has no operation at all, 
not the weight of a feather,—the inside, 
like a bottle filled with water, and the 
outside, being alike : consequently, the, 
distress and exhaustion of the wounded 
fish proceeds not from the pressure of 
water, which does not press on him at 
all, but from the tormenting agony of a 
deadly instrument thrust into his flesh, 
which he struggles to extricate himself 
from. And though the harpoon itself, 
as Mr. Scoresby says, is not alone suffi- 
cient to kill the whale, yet it sometimes 
detains him so long under water as to 
make him kill himself, by suffocation or 
drowning ; because it is well known that 
cetaceous fish cannot long remain under 
water without losing their lives. 
It is only guessed at, but not known, 
what the weight of the atmosphere is. 
Supposing it to be, as some say, twenty 
miles high, then, according to Mr. S.’s 
doctrine, we crawling reptiles on the 
earth, as the floundering whale at the 
bottom of the ocean, should have the 
whole body of the atmosphere pressing 
upon our poor carcases in every direc- 
tion; so that we must be squeezed to 
death, and there could be no such thing 
as animal existence. And this would 
be infallibly- the case, if our interior 
were a yacuum; but the atmosphere is 
to us, what the water is to the whale,— 
the resistance within is equal to the 
pressure without: consequently, neither 
weight, exhaustion, nor inconveniency is 
felt by any animal, in his natural ele- 
ment, by pressure, whether of water or 
air, further than that, with regard to the 
whale, he requires, after a certain time, 
to discharge the water which he has 
imbibed, and to inhale some fresh air; 
which is necessary to his existence. 
Perhaps this critique upon Mr. S.’s 
philosophy may be as great. nonsense as 
On Meteorological Phenomena. 
Newton did not entirely remove. 
23 
what I have represented his to be; but 
as I believe what I have advanced to be 
correct, and there is no doubt but what 
he does the same, I could wish that 
such of your scientific readers as are 
acquainted with this subject would say 
which of us is right; for should it even- 
tually turn out that Mr. S.’s opinion is 
incorrect, it will enable him to make his 
entertaining and instructive book more 
complete in a future edition, by correct- 
ing one of those unintentional errors 
to which the most accurate are liable. 
Your’s, &c. 
Totness, 18th Nov. 1824. A. B.C. 
——<>——_ 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
Sir: 
E are all observers of the wea- 
ther. It is generally the first 
subject when we meet, and often the last 
when we part: its varieties constituting 
much of our pleasure, anxiety, and re- 
gret. Your pages have often-been em- 
ployed in detailing its phenomena, com- 
mon influence, or local peculiarities, 
Could we obtain more certain data, om 
this subject, our modes of philosophizing, 
respecting it, would become more uni- 
form than they have hitherto been, and 
our prognostics, respecting its changes,, 
more certain. It is with the view of 
chaining this Proteus, and obliging him 
to unfold some of his secrets, that the 
following remarks are transmitted to: 
you. 
Philosophy has lost many of those 
appendages with which ancient prejudice 
decorated it, and which’ the science of 
It is. 
true we no longer ascribe the paroxisms 
of madness to the influence of the moon, 
nor hydrophobia to that of the dog- 
star ; the events of a whole life to the 
stellar dominion of our nativity, or the 
success of an enterprize to a lucky day. 
But sailors, I am told, during a calm, yet 
whistle for the wind ; and landsmen refer 
tempest and storm to the controul of 
the “ prince of the power of the air.” 
Even philosophers themselves, notwith- 
standing chemistry has done such great 
things in developing the latent sources 
of heat, yet travel to the sun as the 
central focus of that . all-enlivening. 
quality. 
After our aéronauts had found the 
temperament of the atmosphere the 
colder, the more distant their ascent be- 
came from the earth; and our travel- 
lers, on the more elevated parts of its 
surface, snow, frost, and sterility; when 
life, warmth, and vegetation le 
the 
