SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE 8 1 



it ought to blow toward the pole that is nearest to it, 

 and advancing in that direction only, in order to 

 reach every place, traversing dry countries or ex- 

 tensive seas, it ought then to render the sky serene 

 or stormy. If the influence of the moon on the 

 weather is denied, it is only that it may be referred 

 to its phases, but its position in the ecliptic is re- 

 garded as affording probabilities much nearer the 

 truth* 



In each of these annuals Lamarck took great care 

 to avoid making any positive predictions. " No one," 

 he says, " could make these predictions without deceiv- 

 ing himself and abusing the confidence of persons who 

 might place reliance on them." He only intended to 

 propose simple probabilities. 



After the publication of the first of these annuals, 

 at the request of Lamarck, who had made it the sub- 

 ject of a memoir read to the Institute in 1800 (9 

 ventose, I'an IX.), Chaptal, Minister of the Interior, 

 thought it well to establish in France a regular cor- 

 respondence of meteorological observations made 

 daily at different points remote from each other, and 

 he conferred the direction of it on Lamarck. This 

 system of meteorological reports lasted but a short 

 time, and was not maintained by Chaptal's successor. 

 After three of these annual reports had appeared, 

 Lamarck rather suddenly stopped publishing them, 

 and an incident occurred in connection with their 

 cessation which led to the story that he had suffered 

 ill treatment and neglect from Napoleon I. 



* " On the Influence of the Moon on the Earth's Atmosphere," 

 Journal de Physique, prairial, I'an VI. (1798). 

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