537 



some time back by Mr. Clibborn, the design of which re- 

 sembled a section of the first piece of sculpture. 



The President read a letter by Dr. Osborne on a new 

 application of thermometrical observations for the determina- 

 tion of local climates, in reference to the health of invalids. 



" Dublin, 26, Harcourt-street, March 30, 1850. 



" Dear Sir, — May I beg that you will excuse the liberty 

 I take in laying before you the following observations, in 

 order that they may be submitted to the consideration of the 

 Committee of Science of the Royal Irish Academy, pre- 

 paratory to the arrangements now in progress for an ex- 

 tensive series of meteorological observations throughout Ire- 

 land? 



" In seeking information respecting climates suitable for 

 invalids, I had always been disappointed; the most complete 

 meteorological tables, comprising connected series of observa- 

 tions on the barometer, thermometer, rain-gauge, the clouds, 

 and the winds, being quite inadequate to give a correct repre- 

 sentation of the action of climate on the human constitution, 

 or even on the feelings of the human body. I found some 

 places proverbially cold, yet exhibiting the same thermometric 

 heat as those which were hot, and vice versa; and at last 

 I came to consider the tables, however interesting they might 

 be in physical geography, yet as almost useless to the physi- 

 cian or the invalid. 



• "To judge of the effects of heat or cold on the living inha- 

 bitants of a country, it must be recollected that they are aU 

 endowed with a certain temperature distinct from that of the 

 surrounding air. We are bodies heated to nearly forty degrees 

 above the average climate in this country, and consequently 

 subjected to a continual refrigerating process. That this re- 

 frigeration does not depend on temperature alone, as is so 



2 r2 



