683 



years later, near this coast of Surinam, on the 

 banks of the Oroonoko, confirmed, with the 

 exception of the hour of the maximum of the 

 morning, the precision of the first view of the 

 periods ; they prove also that the Dutch travel- 

 ler had watched several nights to determine the 

 minimum which precedes two or three hours 

 the rising of the sun. With respect to the 

 " conjectures of the philosophers of Europe," 

 of which the correspondent of Surinam desires 

 to be informed, we cannot hitherto offer any 

 that are satisfactory. 



Father Boudier*, from 1740 to 1750, had 

 observed the barometer at Chandernagor in 

 India. He remarked, in the manuscript jour- 

 nals preserved among the papers of M. de Flsle, 

 " that the greatest elevation of the mercury 

 takes place every day towards nine or ten in the 

 morning, and the least elevation towards three or 

 four in the afternoon, and that during the great 

 number of years that the barometer has been 

 fixed at Chandernagor, there are not eight or 

 ten days in which this uniform movement of 

 mercury has not been observed." Yet Chander- 

 nagor is situated nearly at the extremity of the 

 equinoxial region, in 22° 51' north latitude. 



The academicians who were sent to Quito in 



* See Cotte, Traits de Meteorologie, p. 243. B. Memoires 

 $ur la Meteorologie, Vol. ii, p. 302. 



