LUNAR INFLUENCE ON THE TEMPERATURE OF THE AIR. 193 



Your Committee conceive that the application of a portion of the funds 

 contributed by inventors would be most properly applied to affording them 

 this species of protection against the unprofitable expenditure of time and 

 money : the attempt is surely worth the trial ; it would effectually check the 

 prostitution of the patent system to the illegitimate purposes referred to bv 

 the Commissioners. 



The reward of the meritorious inventor in cases in which he alone of the 

 public has failed to benefit by the fruits of his genius, and the purchase of 

 patent rights in him of extending their terms, was referred to in the Report 

 of the Patent Committee of the British Association at the Leeds Meeting as 

 a legitimate appropriation of a portion of the surplus. 



These objects being satisfied, a very large surplus would remain available 

 for the advancement of science by researches having a direct bearing on 

 the reproductive industry of the country. And if it be thought expedient 

 that more money should be levied on the granting of patents than necessary 

 for the expense of the office, inventors have, it is conceived, an irresistible 

 claim for the expenditure of that surplus upon objects bearing on their in- 

 terests and the advancement of science. 



W. Fairbairn. 

 Edward Sabine. 

 Aberdeen, Sept. 16, 1859. Thomas Webster. 



Lunar Influence on the Temperature of the Air. 

 By J. Park Harrison, M.A. 



1. The definite form assumed by lunar curves of mean temperature, obtained 

 from the means of tables framed expressly for the purpose, was brought be- 

 fore the notice of the British Association at Leeds in proof that the moon 

 exerts an indirect, yet appreciable influence over the atmosphere of our 

 globe*. 



A longer series of observations at Greenwich, extending over the period 

 of 43 years, and embracing 520 consecutive lunations, has since been tabu- 

 lated ; and the means of the different columns formed into another, and what 

 may be termed for distinction's sake, a model curve (Plate II. fig. 1). It 

 presents, in common with those which had been already constructed for 

 shorter periods of time, very marked characteristics. 



Upon turning to the Plate it will be perceived that the amount of heat 

 signalized by the shaded portion of the curve (or all that rises above the 

 general mean Hue) is considerably greater at first quarter than at any other 

 period of the lunation, though it will also be noticed that the temperature 

 immediately following on new moon exceeds it in height, on one day by *10 

 of a degree (fig. 1). Upon the average, the first half of this curve, from the 

 2nd or 3rd day before new moon to the 3rd or 4th day before full moon, 

 rises as much above the general mean as the remaining half falls below it. It 

 sinks below the mean line at the period to which attention was originally drawn, 



* At Dublin, where attention was directed to but a small portion of the lunation, it was 

 shown that the temperature immediately following on the moon's first quarter was higher 

 than the temperature of the third day before first quarter, both at Greenwich and Dublin, 

 for the series of years subjected to examination. 



1859. o 



