618 Retrospective Oiitieism. 



converts the hannless nut into that formidable terror of good mothers and 

 valetudinarians, a nut. Had it been treated with the care and tenderness 

 vi'hich are bestowed on other things endowed with life, instead of a terror 

 we should find a harmless gratification : for, Mr. Editor, I am one of those 

 who love a nut, with its appurtenances of chat, fire-side, &c. 



I trust that you will not despise these beamings of gastromania, for all 

 our kitchen-garden care tends to the same end ; and all this rambling to 

 the axiom, that to preserve the fruit (covering according to purists) we 

 must preserve the germen. I trust that my lax language will not call down 

 on me the v.Tath of the botanical physiologist, for, to appease him, I will 

 confess that it would have been easier to have used his terminology. — K. 

 Jiili/, 1831. 



Mr. Gome's proposed Formulary for a Meteorological Journal. — Sir, In 

 your Number for April last (p. 231.) I notice a proposition to establish 

 communicating observatories ; one in the south, one in the middle, and a 

 third in the north of Britain ; to endeavour to determine some facts in 

 meteorology regarding the extent of the ensuing conformity of weather in 

 the northern part of the island to that of the southern. It has long ago 

 been observed that a general change of weather, especially to rain, after 

 drought, usually takes place in Scotland* about nine days posterior to the 

 same change in the south of England; and from this fact your corre- 

 spondent, Mr. T. Machray, seems to have inferred the probability of winds 

 and atmospheric changes progressing northward by pulsations. Although 

 to me it appears improbable that such pulsations are other than imaginary 

 pulsations, yet it is to be hoped that these laudable endeavours, from alove 

 of science, will not be " Love's Labour lost." In following the " Will wi' the 

 wisp" of our own fancies, instead of tumbling into quagmires of eri'or, we 

 sometimes stumble upon objects of high value. Our philosophers, how- 

 ever, have perhaps chosen the most intricate and difficult problem in 

 material science ; to reduce the caprices of the proverbially fickle and 

 changing wind to fixed law and general principle. A sufficiency of unknown 

 region, however, exists. Our knowledge of facts and causes with regard to 

 atmospheric tides and other connected phenomena, more especially beyond 

 the domain of the trade winds, is very imperfect. The following will afford 

 plenty of amusement : — The extent, contortions, eddyings, and mixings of 

 currents of air. Whether a field of air has received impulse from causes 

 affecting its own volume and gravity, or the volume and gravity of neigh- 

 bouring fields. Whether the motion of fields of air generally conmience to 

 windward or to leeward, or simultaneously throughout. The connection of 

 these movements with electricity, temperature, atmospheric pressure, and 

 the variable gravitation. How far electricity, positive and negative, affects 

 the weight of temperature of air, and its power of solution of aqueous 

 vapour, and power of supporting cloud vesicle. The composition of water 

 in the atmos[)here by electric fluid, and its decomposition at the surface of 

 the earth by the oxidation of metals and organic action. 



I allude to this subject in order to point out the inutility of an admired 

 philosophic anemometer and formula of Professor Leslie's, proposed 

 to be used at the observatories by Mr. Gorrie. (See p. 231.) Mr. Gor- 

 rie states: — " The professor found that the cooling power of a stream of 

 air is proportional to its velocity ; and from an algebraic formula we have 

 the following simple rule : — Mark the temperature indicated by a thermo- 

 meter in the still air ; apply the hand to the ball, till the alcohol rises a 



* In the low country of Scotland, having mountains to the northward, 

 I have observed that a change to rain, proceeding northward from Eng- 

 land, oversteps this low country to the mountains, and afterwards returns 

 southward down upon the low country. 



