1820.] Dr. Bimiey's MeteorologicalJournalkept at Gosport, 435 



Rain, &)C. 



Inches. 



Greatest quantity in January 4* 17 



Least quantity in August 0'5S- 



Total quantity for the year 33*33 



N.B. The barometer is hung up in the observatory, about 30 

 feet above hi^h-water mark ; and the self-registering; horizontaT 

 day and night thermometer, and De Luc's whalebone hygrome« 

 ter, are placed in open-worked cases near a wall, in a northern 

 aspect, out of the sun's rays, and 10 feet above the level of the 

 garden. The pluviameter and evaporator have respectively an 

 area of six inches square : the former is emptied every morning 

 at eight, a.m. after rain has fallen into a cylindrical glass gauge 

 accurately graduated to y-j-g-th part of an inch ; and the quantity 

 evaporated from the latter is ascertained every third day. 



Barometric Pressure. — Thinking the barometer would stand 

 higher while the moon was in north declination than when she 

 was in south declination, we separated the time, and found the 

 mean barometric pressure during her north dechnation this year 

 in favour of our conjecture : but as the difference, while in the 

 northern part of her orbit, amounts only to yj^t^ of an inch, we 

 are therefore inclined to think that, in a local point of vietu,. 

 nothing satisfactory to meteorology can be drawn from this 

 ■experiment ; although it has recently been suspected by meteo- 

 rologists that the moon has much more influence on the earth's 

 atmosphere in one part of her orbit than in the other. If future 

 results should be found to decide the question, they must, we 

 think, accrue from a series of combined barometric observations, 

 in many distant places both in north and south latitude. But 

 until observations of this sort be more generally and very regu- 

 larly made in many favourable places, it is probable that the 

 question will remain unsolved. In observations that may be 

 made to determine it, the precise state of the winds, morning, 

 afternoon and night, should be particularly registered, and frona 

 a high vane, as a great deal will depend upon the prevalence oC 

 westerly and southerly winds, which are found to diminish the 

 weight of the atmospheric column, and consequently shorten the 

 barometric or mercurial column, in whatever part of her orbit the 

 moon may be in at the time. The annual mean barometric 

 pressure this year agrees exactly with that for the preceding^ 

 year, as shown in the table. 



Temperature. — The mean temperature of Gosport for the last 

 two prolific years is 1-^0° rnore than in 1817; but the maximum duxiA. 

 minimum temperatures for 1819 are respectively 8° lower thaa 

 that of 1818. The mean of the observations taken at eight, 

 a.m. and eight, p. m. is nearly 1°, and the mean of those taken 

 Ht two, p.m. 1-(J8'' less this year than last; yet there is a near 



Vol XV. N° VI. 2 E 



