727 



the barometric height of noon may be consider- 

 ed, without sensible errors, as the mean of 

 the day. My observations, made at different 

 heights, north and south of the equator, seem 

 to prove that the mean of noon is generally a lit- 

 tle more elevated in Equinoctial America, than 

 the mean of 9 h and 4 h , the barometer descend- 

 ing much less rapidly from 9 ]l till noon, than 

 from noon till 4 h . I draw this result from 260 

 observations taken by chance from my regis- 

 ters. 



A long series of observations made on a table- 

 land of India, at the foot of the Himalaya, * 

 cannot lead to an analagous result, because the 

 maximum of the morning is not indicated ; but 

 that series gives with precision the mean of the 

 hours of noon, 3 h in the afternoon, 9 h in the 

 evening, and 4 h in the morning, in hundredths 

 of the English inch. 



* Francis Hamilton, formerly Buchanan, Account of the 

 kingdom of Nepaul, 1819, p, 230. In comparing 0 h in the 

 evening and 4 h in the morning, it must not be forgotten that 

 the maximum of the evening tide falls between 10 h and llh. 



