722 ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS PHENOMENA. 



give it a parting word. Its advocates tell us all these awful manifestations 

 come from the ascensive power of heated air, but experiment has demon- 

 strated that even air, confined so as to prevent the operation of the law 

 of diffusion and expansion, which are free to act in the atmosphere, where 

 heated to 100° above surrounding air, exerts a force of only one-third 

 of an ounce to a square foot. Yet forests have been prostrated, cities 

 wrecked, and navies stranded when the thermometer showed but 70°. Is 

 it possible science has endorsed such a stupendous illusion as this? Why not 

 instead look to this other source for the daily atmospheric phenomena, all 

 over the globe? The electrical current is uniform, the heated air theory 

 is not — the results, varied and incessant, are in harmony with the electric 

 law, which is constant but in varying intensity. The one is harmonious 

 and consistent, the other uniform only in its inconsistencies. Every day we 

 see the evidences of the electric flow — even the shivered tree tells its story 

 that the positive cloud and the negative earth have established the electri- 

 cal equilibrium, leaving it to be a witness that man may learn. We are 

 told the same fact by influences upon animal life long before the disturbing 

 cause has become patent to the sense. Cackling geese saved Eome, but 

 their cries preceding a storm have told the rustic for ages what science has 

 shut its eyes to for centuries. Even the unpoetic pig has discovered the 

 fact, and in obedience to the law makes his bed warm long in advance. 

 Can we not learn of facts as well? — that these are the warnings of electrical 

 conditions, not of tropical heats 2,000 miles to the south of us. 



But to return. Even the oscillations of the barometer are now found 

 to be influenced by electric currents, for it has its maxima and its minima, 

 entirely independent of temperature — tides of the atmosphere as there are 

 tides of the sea — induced by electric tension of the air. And as intimated 

 before, it is more than a question whether clouds themselves are not the 

 result of electric process instead of cold — or that cold is only one of its 

 agents, but not indispensable. 



It is by no means settled that magnetism does not promote cold, and 

 that in this form of electricity we may not find the factor which has always 

 been evoked from unknown and unknowable space. If so, then the circle 

 is complete That '' cold is the absence of heat," has been the extent of 

 our knowledge, is proverbial, but if cold, too, is found to.be but one form 

 of the manifestation of this mysterious force, then will meteorology gain 

 new elements for the fulfillment of its ambition as an exact science. 



We do know that the magnetic intensity of the earth differs — it is not 

 uniformly distributed. There are magnetic poles, and we find that there 

 are lines of greatest intensity, passing from these poles and connecting 

 with like poles in both hemispheres. They are known as lines of no varia- 

 tion — or where the needle does not dip. Facts show that these lines afi'ect 

 the meteorology of that portion of the earth through which they pass — as 

 the stormy Atlantic and the peaceful Pacific seas attest, as well as the 

 climatic conditions of their coasts. 



