ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS PHENOMENA. 713 



Kaemtz, Dr. Earth, Prof. Coffin, and others — covering long series of years, 

 and at all seasons. 



Commencing on the west coast of ITindostan, we have a table by Kaemtz 

 in his treatise oa meteorology, kept at Anjarakandy, a place where the 

 trades " shorten up," as the theory tells us. When the trades blow over 

 this place, between 12° and 13° north latitude, the thermometer stands 

 during April at a mean of 85° Fahrenheit — and when the Sun is south. 

 In July, when the Sun is vertical, and the "belt of calms" is over it, the 

 thermometer is 77°. And after, in November, when the trades sweep over 

 it again, and the Sun is south, it is at 80° — a difference of 5° and 8° against 

 the theory. 



Next we conio to Northern Africa, and with the record of Dr. Earth, at 

 Kukuwa and Soudan — latitude 12° north, when the trades blow the mer- 

 cury for more than half the days, is above 100°, in April, May and early 

 June, \vhile the San is not vertical. In August, when the trade is "short- 

 ened up," and does not blow, and when the Sun is vertical, the thermome- 

 ter only rose above 90° on two days. And after, in October, when the trades 

 returned, and the Sun was not vertical, it rose again to above 100° on every 

 day of the month save two. 



According to Dr. Earth, between May and October, when the Sun was 

 not vertical, and July and August when it was vertical, the mean difference 

 in the thermometer was 15° against the theory. 



We now come to the North Atlantic, where we have the tables of no 

 less authority than those of Dove. On latitude 14°, the limit of the trades, 

 the temperature for five degrees north of this is always at least two degrees 

 higher. And here the tables of Prof. Coffin, published by the Smithsonian 

 Institute, are also available. These show that for six hundred miles of the 

 African coast, adjoining the great Sahara desert, on which the surface is 

 heated to a daily temperature of 130° to 160°, and where the thermometer 

 stands in the shade during the summer months, as high as 112°, the wind 

 draws off from this heated surface and blows into a region where the mer- 

 cury is never over 8i° — and according to Prof. Coffin's map of the trades, 

 when by the theory the wind should btow from the sea into this heated 

 area, constantly, that in only twelve recorded instances out of three hun- 

 dred and ninety-four, in the month of August, did the wind blow from any 

 quarter to this hot region or toward the shore anywhere. The hot desert 

 does not draw the winds from the cool ocean, nor does it in the least hold 

 back or disturb the trades which blow over it — but they blow uninterrupt- 

 edly from land heated to 130° every day on to water which is never heated 

 over 82°. 



The next to consider is South America, north of the equator, on the plains 

 of the Orinoco, where we have the testimony of Humboldt, when the trades 

 are blowing over them. These are his words : "When beneath the vertical 

 rays of the bright and cloudless sun of the tropics, the parched sward, crum- 

 bles into dust, then the indurated soil cracks and bursts, as if rent asunder 



