240 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 70 



occur in Batavia. The curves for the air pressure (P) for the two 

 ocean fields agree nicely with the air pressure curve for Batavia, 

 but not so completely with the air pressure curve for Mauritius. 

 There appears a displacement such as we have already mentioned, 

 and such as was noted by Chambers also, so that the variations in 

 the further western regions occur earlier than those in the more 

 eastern regions. The variations in the ocean fields are almost simul- 

 taneous with the variations in Batavia, but they are considerably 

 later than the variations in Mauritius. 



The curves for wind velocity (W) and cloudiness (N) show less 

 marked agreement. The wind velocity varies on the whole (par- 

 ticularly in the most easterly of the two ocean fields) oppositely to 

 the temperature. High wind velocities appear to accompany rela- 

 tively low temperatures. Particularly in the most eastern ocean 

 field, the variations in the wind velocity come somewhat before 

 the variations of the temperature. The cloudiness appears to have 

 a tendency in this field to go oppositely to the temperature and air 

 pressure. But the variations in the cloudiness occur somewhat 

 before the corresponding temperature variations, so that low cloudi- 

 ness occurs before high temperature and vice versa. 



The surprisingly good agreement between the variations in the 

 meteorological elements in these ocean fields and the variations in 

 the same meteorological elem.ents over the land stations seems to 

 prove definitely that no such opposite relationship between the varia- 

 tions of the ocean and the variations of the land exists as Blanford's 

 theory assumes. These fields reach so far throughout the Indian 

 Ocean that we must conclude that they represent the true oceanic 

 relations. 



We find on the whole that the different theories which we have 

 mentioned above for the explanation for the variations of the tem- 

 perature of the earth are scarcely in agreement with the results of 

 our investigations either for the short period variations or for the 

 longer period variations of eleven years. We must therefore seek 

 elsewhere for a satisfactory explanation of these fluctuations. 



A COMMON ERROR OF EARLIER AUTHORS 



The error, according to our thought, which the most of the 

 earlier authors have fallen into in their considerations of the pos- 

 sible cause of the temperature variations of the earth consists in that 

 they have assumed that variations of the average temperature for the 

 surface of the whole earth should act as a kind of a measure of the 



