258 ®N THE ELECTRIC COLUMN. 



judgment was soon confirmed ; for Mr. de Stiussure, wh© 



had made a quicker progress than myself in hygrometrical 



experiments, discovered the faUacy of the above plausible 



system, which at first he had adopted with applause : he 



demonstrated by direct processes, that, though the aqueous 



our^inade-' ^^P^^'^ is specifically lighter than air, the difference between 



quale to ac- its greatest and smallest quantity in the atmesphere at any 



ceunt for the ^.jj^g jg g^ ji^ie that it can explain but a very inconsiderable 



variations of .. r»ii tii 



the barometer, part of the Variations ot the barometer. I had not yet 



carried my own experiments so far, but I did not doubt the 

 main result of his, as they bore all the characters of a true 

 inquiry, and 1 abandoned my system, as applied to the 

 aqueous vapour. 

 Probably other But the general conclusion that I had deduced from the 

 imponderable gj-^at reduction of anomalies in the measurement of heights 



fluids in the ? , . , . , • • ,, • . i • 



atmosphere t>y the barometer, which was principally owing to the intro- 



besidefreeiire. duction of an equation for the difl'erences of the quantity of 

 free fire in the air, still remained ; namely, that some ^vr- 

 pansibfe Jiuids as imponderable as the former, hitherto un- 

 known to us, might also account for that remarkable corres- 

 pondence between the changes of the weather, and the 

 variations of the barometer. For, the name Jiuids, which, 

 from their abundance at certain times, lessen the pressure 

 of the atmospheric columns on a certain extent of country, 

 by dilating the air and repelling it to other parts, may also 

 prepare its decomposition, for the production of rain, either 

 alone, or accompanied with other meteors; and at other 

 times they may be dissipated without producing any of these 

 effects, occasioning only the fail of the barometer. 



Meteorology The above series of facts and their immediate conse- 



uuimatelycon- q^jeiices present the oreatest assemblaj^e of operations of 



nected with , - , , , , 



the nature of physical causes on our globe ; and a general consequence 



the component cejiainly results from them, namely, that all these opera- 



purts of the at- . "^ . . , , . , , n , -^ 



iMosphere. tions are so intimately connected with the nature ot aeriform 

 fiuub, of water, light, fire, and electric fluid, that we can- 

 not determine any thing with the smallest degree of cer- 

 tajoty on the nature of any of these substances, without 

 embracing the whole. When therefore we discover some 

 new phenomenon of any of theae fluids, at what distance 

 soever this phenomenon may be from connecting itself with 



the 



