5i 



USE OF MErEOUOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS TO NAVIGATOHS. 



VIIL 



Remarks on some useful Applications of Meteorological Ob^ 

 servations to Nautical Prophylactics: by F. Peron, Natu^ 

 ralist of the Voyage of Discovery to the Austral Lands, 

 Correspondent of the Imperial Institute, Sfc* 



M, 



on land 



and at sea. 



Meteorological i.'yAETEOROLOGICAL instruments, it is true, are but 

 observations modern acquisitions to science; yet observations with ihetn 

 have been pursued so steadily, and in so many different cli- 

 inates, that we have reason to be equally astonished at the 

 imperfection of their theory, and of the few useful applica- 

 tions they furnish. Perhaps the chief reason of this is to be 

 found in the nature of the theatre on which these experi- 

 ments have been made almost exclusively to the present 

 day. In fact, how many joint causes concur, in the midst of 

 our continents, to complicate results essentially so different 

 and so delicate ! The observer on the ocean, on the contrary, 

 left to the exclusive influence of the air and water, may give 

 greater precision and developement to his experiments, and 

 deduce conclusions more exact, and more general in their 

 application. It is not my intention here to enter into what 

 I had myself an opportunity of doing in this way amid so 

 many seas, repeating my observations daily at six o'clock 

 morning and evening, at noon, and at midnight ; but to con- 

 fine myself to a few experiments, which appear to me more 

 immediately connected with the health of mariners. 

 Obserratioiis In this class I conceive may be placed a series of tables of 

 connected with ^^^ variation of the barometer, hygrometer, and thermo- 

 the health of . „ , l- ■, • r . i 



seamen. meter, and of the temperature of the sea at its surface, taken 



at every hundred leagues for 95 degrees of latitude; an un- 

 dertaking that appears to me as new, as it is capable of 

 becoming at a future period of importance in preserving the 

 health of seamen. By multiplying tables of this kind, con- 

 structed with as much care as I employed in it, we should 

 soon have a kind of meteorological hydrography, equally 

 indispensable to the natural philosopher and the physician. 

 The latitude and longitude of a part of the sea being given, 



* ^OHrn. de Phys, vol. LXVlI, p. 29. 



