1838.] 



Meteorological Register at Royacttah. 



423 



Note. — The Meteorological Observations made at Royacottah will, 

 we hope, be steadily continued, particulady when the barometers 

 which have been ordered for this station are supplied : we say steadi- 

 ly continued, for on referring to former attempts which have been 

 made in India to establish a regular meteorological registry at any 

 considerable elevation, we have not been so fortunate as to meet with 

 one which is complete for any useful length of time. Our present 

 information with regard to the constitution of the atmosphere has 

 almost entirely been derived from the persevering assiduity of Hum- 

 boldt and Roy :~from these we have learned the amount and law of 

 the decrement of temperature and of the elasticity of the air on 

 ascending to various heights in the atmosphere in its mean sta^te ; 

 it would now be interesting from a few series of carefully made obser- 

 vations like the above, to discover in extreme cases how far these laws 

 are transgressed. We are led to make these remarks, from hav- 

 ing lately examined a meteorological journal (one of the imperfect 

 ones) in which it appeared that at a considerable elevation, the fluctua- 

 tions of the barometer in extreme cases greatly exceeded that observed 

 in the plains below !— another journal contradicted this. With regard 

 to the remark made by our correspondent — that, in proportion to the 

 height above the level of the sea, the depression of the wet bulb ther- 

 mometer observed at Royacottah is in defect, &c. although we are 

 very willing to believe that he means right, nevertheless, he 

 certainly, if we rightly understand him, appears to be wrong j 

 we shall therefore feel obliged for the data on which the comparison 

 with the level of the sea is made. — —Editor, 



