METEOROLOGICAL NOTES. 639 



yet the sea is not responsible for them only so far as it furnishes plenty of mate- 

 rial ; it does not furnish the active agent (heat) which creates them, and they may 

 occur inland or on the sea-board or lake shore wherever there is sufficient moisture 

 to develop them. 



Fogs of the other type, which sailors call " land fogs " may exist even in the 

 very centre of the area of high barometer, and separately px in conjunction with 

 it. The peculiarity of it is that it may not, and generally does not, reveal itself 

 in force until about sunrise. The land retains the heat far better than water, and 

 the land, especially in the neighborhood of bodies of water, retains much moisture. 



All night long the land has been giving off its heat, taking more or less moist- 

 ure with it. If through the night there is a good breeze this cloud like moisture 

 will be wafted away toward the nearest or most powerful centre of " Low " and 

 ^there will be no local fog; if on the contrary it is a still night this moisture will 

 hover over the place, the while growing thicker and thicker. About sunrise the 

 land has lost its most heat. So long as there was heat to ascend it buoyed up 

 .the suspended moisture, in this case called "fog" and kept it well expanded. 

 The land becoming quite cool, the specific gravity of this suspended moisture, in 

 the absence of ascending heat, settles together and returns to the ground in masses, 

 the while becoming more and more dense forming a thick, heavy fog, probably 

 the most impenetrable of all fogs. The returning sun, however, soon dispels this 

 fog — evaporating it or forcing it away by establishing a centre of concentrated 

 heat or local "low" — generating a breeze which transports it elsewhere in the 

 -form of clouds. From our present light upon the science of meteorology such 

 would seem to be the nature and cause of fogs. 



Where our Storms come from. — One of the strangest phenomena pre- 

 sented to us is the indifference of the most intelligent portion of the world to the 

 actual facts of the weather and the eagerness with which they will jump at the 

 mere ipse dixi'- of some person who trusts more to his imagination than to the 

 plain simple facts in the case. Some "great European scientist," or some 

 •^* great weather-wise American " has something to say about the weather; no 

 matter how absurd, it is passed around from city to city. The people, who don't 

 know anything about it, read and wonder, but are unable to do otherwise than 

 to accept it, same as the world centuries ago, with no knowledge of the geography 

 of the globe, necessarily accepted the last new tale of every adventuresome navi- 

 gator or explorer. 



Within the past year a " great English scientist " advanced some ideas, not 

 very new however, about electric currents being the cause of the changes in our 

 weather. " Electricity " has to shoulder a great deal; when one cannot explain 

 .a phenomenon in nature he puts on a wise look and credits it to electricity. The 

 greater the reputation of the man the more ready the world is to accord him great 

 wisdom and to accept whatever he says without question. 



In regard to any " great English scientist," England, and indeed the whole 

 British Isles, are not one-hundredth part large enough to study meteorology on — 

 ■might as well undertake to study the geology of the world on an ordinary house 



