THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[FIFTH SERIES.] 



JUNE 1886. 



LXIII. On the Conservation of Energy in the Earth's 

 Atmosphere. By Wekner Siemens *. 



IN my communication to the Academy, " On the Admissi- 

 bility of the Assumption of a Solar Electric Potential, 

 and its Importance for the Explanation of Terrestrial Pheno- 

 mena "f, I have endeavoured to refer certain still enigmatical 

 meteorological phenomena to disturbances of the equilibrium 

 of the atmosphere. Further consideration of these interest- 

 ing questions has shown me that a consistent application of 

 the fundamental law of conservation of energy in the atmo- 

 sphere leads to a much more complete explanation of them 

 than I had recognized. 



The interdependence of meteorological phenomena has been 

 minutely studied by meteorologists of late years. 



There exists upon this subject an almost immeasurable mass 

 of observations, upon which many ingenious theories have 

 been founded. These are, however, for the most part con- 

 cerned with secondary phenomena, and rest therefore upon a 

 narrow foundation. It would even appear as' if modern 

 meteorology had somewhat neglected, for these special studies, 

 the inquiry into the primary causes of the phenomena ob- 

 served. Dove, in his theory of winds and storms, does, how- 

 ever, seek their cause altogether in the ascending currents of 



* Translated from the Sitzungsberichte der Koniglich preussischen Aka- 

 demie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, March 4, 1886, vol. xiii. 



t Sitzungsberichte, March 31, 1883 ; Phil. Mag. September 1883. 



Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 21. No. 133. June 1886. 2 K 



