681 



MM. Varin, de Hayes, and de Glos * re- 

 marked, in 1682, in a voyage undertaken by the 

 King's order, to Cape Verd and the American 

 islands, " that the barometer at Goree is general- 

 ly lowest when the thermometer is highest, and 

 usually two to four lines higher at night than 

 in the day ; and that this instrument changes 

 more from morning till night, than from night 

 till morning." 



The observations of father Beze, on the as- 

 cension of the barometer in the coolest hours 

 of the day, are also no less vague and inexact^. 

 He has been erroneously cited J by some natu- 

 ralists, as having discoverecat Pondicherryand 

 Batavia, in 1690, the regularity of the horary 

 variations in the tropics. Father Beze observes 

 only, " that he is of the opinion of one of his 

 friends, who thinks that the height of the baro- 

 meter being so constart in the equinoxial 

 regions, may serve as a common measure, sure, 

 and easily found, for alJ the different nations of 

 the earth." It appears singular that Richer, 

 charged by the academy in 1671, to examine if 

 the (mean) barometric height was the same at 

 Cayenne and at Paris, had not fixed his atten- 

 tion on the horary variations 



* M£m. de CAcad., Vol. vii, p. 452. 

 f The barometer and thermometer mount at the same 

 time, from sunrise to nine in the morning. 



X L. c. p. 839. § L. c, p. 323. 



