METEOROLOGICAL FACTORS AND PHENOMENA. 421 



METEOROLOGY. 



METEOROLOGICAL FACTORS AND PHENOMENA. 



ISAAC P. NOYES. 



The Factors which produce our meteorological phenomena are very few, 

 and may, like all other branches of science, be divided and sub-divided into pos- 

 itive and negative, or active and passive. To enumerate them in exact order 

 may be difficult and unimportant. 



It matters not whether for the first of our two grand factors we take the Sun 

 or the Earth, for without them both we could not have oar peculiar existence or 

 our present meteorologicai.1 system. 



The Sun as the active agent of heat, the generator and sustainer of life, is 

 the active or positive factor, while the Earth is the passive or negative one, yet 

 both are equally important, and in many respects both positive and negative. 



But the mere presence of heat or sunshine upon a planetary body will not 

 produce meteorological phenomena. The body must itself be in condition and 

 have certain combinations of elements in order to produce the effect. The heat 

 of a hundred suns concentrated on a non-aqueous body like the Moon would 

 not produce the necessary combinations. In combination with heat we must 

 have water. Such a body as the Moon may, and undoubtedly does have com- 

 motions of atmosphere, such as they are, but then all these commotions would 

 not be like those on a body like our earth where water is abundant. 



If satellites like the Moon have storms they must be what we would term 

 dry storms. The concentrations of heat on certain parts of the Moon must create 

 some disturbance there, but owing to the absence of water whereby an atmos- 

 phere is created, the element surrounding the Moon, (ether, if we may so term 

 it — being so subtle and transparent) — though it cause a disturbance, what it may 

 create is not visible to us 240,000 miles away. If there are any storms on the 

 surface of the Moon they must be the result of the movement of dry ether or very 

 light air. There must necessarily be some concentration of heat; some parts of 

 the moon must be hotter than others, and having no moisture to retain heat they 

 must heat and cool rapidly;. and it would seem that the points of concentration of 

 heat must change from place to place, at least that the atmosphere, such as it is, of 

 the cooler reverse side must be moved toward those portions where the heat of 

 the Sun is concentrated and that this must establish currents from the cold to the 

 hot and from the hot to the cold. 



This idea assumes that the Moon must have an atmosphere, while science 



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