the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St Petersburg. 79 



which perform an important part in meteorological pheno- 

 mena ; and eAcr since, these new discoveries have been made 

 subservient to explain these phenomena. What progress, for 

 example, could the theory of the electricity of the clouds 

 have made, if we had been always obliged to observe these 

 phenomena on the great scale, such as nature presents them 

 to us, striking the observer with amazement rather than with 

 curiosity, crushing, so to speak, his attention, by the impe- 

 tuosity of their shock 1 It was by rubbing, at first, a small 

 bit of amber, and afterwards a plate of glass, against a piece 

 of cloth ; it was by causing the electricity developed by this 

 friction, to act on light pith balls, that we discovered the 

 identity of the electricity of our machines with the matter 

 which charges the stormy clouds, and which darts from them 

 in flashes to destroy all it encounters ; and ever since, all the 

 circumstances which accompany these terrible phenomena 

 have been studied without danger, by exhibiting them on a 

 small scale in our laboratories. 



" But there is still another cause which has retarded the 

 developement. of meteorology, while astronomy, starting from 

 tlie same point, has followed a more secure and rapid route. 

 Astronomy is occupied with phenomena, which present, at 

 first sight, great regularity and remarkable simplicity ; greater 

 complication only manifests itself after a long course of obser- 

 vations, and the employment of more perfect instruments. It 

 is thus that astronomy has passed from the simple to the com- 

 plicated, and that the human mind, allured by the hope of 

 easy discoveries, has engaged with ardour in a path, the dif- 

 ficulties of which only shewed themselves in proportion as the 

 investigation advanced, and whose obstacles, although conti- 

 nually increasing, always kept the same relation to the strength 

 acquired. In meteorology, precisely the contrary has taken 

 place ; meteorological phenomena present, at the first sight, 

 extreme complication and irregularity ; and it is only by the 

 force of observation, and the employment of exact instruments, 

 that we liave at last arrived, after many fruitless attempts, at 

 the (ILscovery of certain general laws. 



" The neglect into which meteorology had for a long time 

 fallen, recommends it particularly io academies and learned 



