VOL. XXXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. \Q 



tion with the trachea, is by its proper weight deteraiined to enter them, when 

 the resistance happens to be diminished. Thus as, during inspiration, it passes 

 through the mouth and nostrils, so it Hkewise enters the puncta lacrymalia; 

 and must necessarily carry with il, towards these puncta and their small canals, 

 the moisture that lubricates the surface of the ball of the eye, as it mixes with 

 it. Therefore it is easy to perceive already, that to preserve to the tears their 

 new and artificial road into the nose, we need only commit the whole care to 

 the continual passage of the air and tears. It is well known in good surgery, 

 that it is very difficult, not to say impossible, to effect a reunion in a part, that 

 serves as an emunctory to a liquor constantly flowing to it. 



Now let us exan)ine, if nature alone can stop the hole made by the operation. 

 It will not be imagined, that from the remains of a bony lamina, so thin as the 

 OS unguis, a sufficient quantity of ossifying juice can work out to stop it up. 

 The periosteum and saccus lacrymalis are too much lacerated, to think it possible 

 for them to repair of themselves what they had lost. Nor will it be believed, 

 that the membrana pituitaria can easily fill up the hole made in it. Those are 

 the parts concerned in the operation : but even if they are granted to be more 

 disposed to a re-production than they really are, still the air and tears will 

 always be able to preserve themselves a passage into the nose. 



Therefore, after having destroyed the saccus lacrymalis and os unguis, in- 

 stead of introducing an extraneous body capable of making the orifice of the 

 small common canal into the ductus lacrymalis become callous, and of drawing 

 on a suppuration, the communication between the nose and eye must be left 

 entirely disengaged, and liberty by this means be given to respiration, to make 

 both the air alone, and the air mixed with the tears, to pass continually 

 through it. 



Also, the action of these fluids may be assisted by the application of col- 

 lyriums, and by making frequent injections into the puncta lacrymalia ; which 

 besides the common effects that may be naturally expected from them, will con- 

 tribute to prevent the juice, that re-unites the wound made in the skin, from 

 over-straitening the canal. 



On the Cause of the General Trade- Winds. By Geo. Hudley, Esq. F. R. S. 



N° 437, p. 38. 



Probably the causes of the general trade-winds have not been fully explained 

 by any who have written on that subject, for want of more particularly and 

 distinctly considering the share the diurnal motion of the earth has in their pro- 

 duction. For though this has been mentioned by some among the causes of 

 those winds, yet they have not showed how it contributes to their production ; 



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