167 



belts and other places. It may be electrical, or it maybe magnetic, 

 or botli conjoined. 



359. The more we study the workings of the atmospherical 

 Queteiets observa- machinery of our planet, the more are we impressed 

 ^^^^^- with the conviction that we as yet know very little con- 

 cerning its secret springs, and the httle " governors " here and there 

 which regulate its movements. My excellent friend M. Quetelet, 

 the astronomer royal at Brussels, has instituted a most excellent 

 series of observations upon atmospherical electricity. He has shown 

 that there is in the upper regions of the air a great reservoir of 

 positive electricity, which increases as the temperatm^e diminishes. 

 So, too, mth the magnetism of the oxygen in the upper regions. 



360. In the southern hemisphere, we may, by reason of its great 

 At sea in the south- aqucous area, suppose the g-eneral lavv^ of atmo- 

 have the rule, on sj)herical movemeuts to be better developed than it 

 the'exce^prion^fas^to is iQ the northcm hemisphere. We accordingly 



tion^uhe^atmo"^''' ^^^ ^J ^^® ^^'^^^ (§ ^^^) ^^^* *^® movcmeuts uorth 

 sphere. and south between 45° and 50° correspond with the 



movements south and north between 25° and 30° ; that as you 

 go h^om the latter band towards the equator the winds with southing 

 in them increase, while the mnds with northing in them increase as 

 you go from the former towards the pole. 



361. This is the law in both hemispheres : thus indicating that 

 The magnetic poles, tliore must bo iu the polar resions, as in the equa- 



the poles of the wind , • -, ^ i S n ii i-n 



and ofcoid coincident, tonal, a calm placc, where these polar-bounci wmds 

 cease to go forward, rise up, and commence their return (§ 214) as 

 an upper current. So we have theoretically a calm disc, a polygon 

 — not a belt — about each pole. The magnetic poles and the poles 

 of maximum cold (§ 347) are coincident. Do not those calm 

 discs, or "poles of the wind," and the magnetic poles, cover 

 the same spot, the two standing in the relation of cause and effect ? 

 This question was first asked several years ago,* andlwas^then 

 moved to propound it by the inductions of theoretical reasoning. 

 Observers, perhaps, may never reach those mhospitable regions 

 with their instruments to shed more light upon this subject ; but 

 Parry and Barrow have fomid reasons to believe in the existence 

 of a perpetual calm about the north pole, and later, Bellot has 

 reported the existence of a calm region within the frigid zone. 

 Professor J. H. Coffin, in an elaborate and valuable paper t on the 



* Maury's Sailing Directions. 



t Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. vi., 1854. 



