THE STORY OF NINETEENTH-CENT UKY SCIENCE 



Possibilities, I said, not probabilities. Yet even the 

 faint glimmer of so alluring a possibility brings home to 

 one with vividness the truth of Humboldt's perspicuous 

 observation that meteorology can be properly compre- 

 hended only when studied in connection with the com- 

 panion sciences. There are no isolated phenomena in 

 nature. 



Yet, after all, it is not to be denied that the chief 

 concern of the meteorologist must be with that other 

 medium, the " ocean of air, on the shoals of which we 

 live." For whatever may be accomplished by water 

 currents in the way of conveying heat, it is the wind 

 currents that effect the final distribution of that heat. 

 As Dr. Croll has urged, the waters of the Gulf Stream 

 do not warm the shores of Europe by direct contact, 

 but by warming the anti-trade-winds, which subsequent- 

 ly blow across the continent. And everywhere the 

 heat accumulated by water becomes effectual in modi- 

 fying climate, not so much by direct radiation as by dif- 

 fusion through the medium of the air. 



This very obvious importance of aerial currents led 

 to their practical study long before meteorology had 

 any title to the rank of science, and Dalton's explana- 

 tion of the trade-winds had laid the foundation for a 

 science of wind dynamics before our century began. 

 But no substantial further advance in this direction was 

 effected until about 1827, when Heinrich W. Dove, of 

 Konigsberg, afterwards to be known as perhaps the fore- 

 most meteorologist of his generation, included the winds 

 among the subjects of his elaborate statistical studies in 

 climatology. 



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