368 On Storms and Meteorological Ohservations. 



self the task of comparing, with this object in view, the meteorological 

 tables of any one year. I should not propose to myself io furnish the 

 public with particular and detailed remarks upon all the observations, 

 but simply to give an account of whatever interesting facts were to be 

 discovered in my three hundred and sixty five particular maps. I 

 fear that these ideas, which will perhaps appear to have been made 

 somewhat at a hazard, would not be found easy of execution. Whilst 

 waiting however for some result of this sort, I am about to collect a 

 number of papers on the subject of meteorology, which I hope to be 

 able to arrange and publish in the course of the ensuing year. Along 

 with some fragments of my own, I propose to give a translation, with 

 notes, of an English work, entided Researches on Atmospheric Phe- 

 nomena, by Thomas Forster." 



It would be difficult in this country to secure the cooperation of as 

 large a number of observers, as were required by Professor Brandes 

 for carrying his plans into execution. But the comparison of a much 

 smaller number of meteorological registers, exhibiting the course of 

 the winds, the aspect of the heavens, and the quantity of rain or 

 snow, would afford valuable information, especially respecting the 

 ■ more remarkable phenomena. Such a comparison would have 

 shown, during the last fall, that violent north east storms may sweep 

 over the northern and eastern states, without making themselves felt 

 at all in the Carolinas. We meet from time to time, in this Journal 

 and elsewhere, with enquiries respecting the "Indian summer" — or 

 the dry fog that covers this country in autumn, and sometimes in the 

 spring. A very few observations in remote parts of the United States, 

 continued through a single year, would be worth more than a consid- 

 erable book of speculations upon the subject. They would determine 

 in particular whether the opinion of some philosophers who represent 

 it as a smoke proceeding from the combustion of the prairies and 

 forests is correct, or whether, as is more probable, it depends upon 

 some condition of the atmosphere that is not understood, and is simi- 

 lar to that v/hich accompanies the Harmattan on the coast of Guinea. 

 The following quotations have reference to this subject. 



"During several of the summer months of the year 1783, when 

 the effects of the sun's rays to lieat the earth in these northern re- 

 gions should have been the greatest, there existed a constant fog over 

 all Europe and great part of North America. This fog was of a 

 permanent nature ; it was dry, and the rays of the sun seemed to 

 have little 'efiect towards dissipating it, as they easily do a moist fog 

 arising from water. They were indeed rendered so faint in passing 



