M E T 
M E T 
M E T 
7 5 silica 
37 magnesia 
43 oxide of iron 
2 oxide of nickel 
1 62. 
The increase of weight was owing to the oxy- 
I ilizem lit of the metallic bodies. 
Stones which fell at Laigle in France in 
i 1803, yielded by the analysis of Vauquelin 
and Fourcroy, 
5 i silica 
36 oxide of iron 
9 magnesia 
3 oxide of nickel 
2 sulphur 
1 lime 
105. 
The celebrated stone which fell at Ensis- 
fceim, in Alsace, in 1493, yielded to the same 
philosophers, 
56.0 silica 
30.0 oxide of iron 
12.0 magnesia 
2.4 nickel 
3.5 sulphur 
1.4 lime. 
105.3 
5. The experiments of Howard, thus con- 
firmed by others, and supported by the most 
respectable historical evidence, having de- 
monstrated that these stony bodies really do 
fall from the heavens, it was natural to ex- 
pect that various attempts would be made to 
account for their appearance. But such is 
the obscurity of the subject, so little progress 
have we made in the science of meteorology, 
that no opinion in the slightest degree pro- 
bable has hitherto been advanced. It was 
first supposed that the bodies in question had 
been thrown out of volcanoes; but the im- 
mense distance from all volcanoes at which 
they have been found, and the absence of all 
similar stones from volcanic productions, ren- 
der this opinion untenable. Chladni endea- 
voured to prove, that the meteors from which 
they fell were bodies floating in space, un- 
connected with any planetary system, at- 
tracted by the earth in their progress, and 
kindled by their rap d motion through the 
atmosphere. But this opinion is not suscep- 
tible of any direct evidence, and can scarce- 
ly be believed, one would think, even by Dr. 
Chladni himself. Laplace suggests the pro- 
bability of their having been thrown off by 
the volcanoes of the moon : but the meteors 
which al cost always accompany them, end 
the swiftness of their horizontal motion, mili- 
tate too strongly against this opinion. The 
greater number of philosophers consider 
them, with Mr. King and sir William Ha- 
milton, as concretions actually formed in the 
atmosphere. This opinion is undoubtedly 
the most probable of all ; but in the present 
state of our knowledge, it would be absurd 
to attempt any explanation of the manner in 
which they are formed. 'The masses of na- 
tive iron found in South America, in Siberia, 
and near Agnam, contain nickel, as has been 
ascertained by Proust, Howard, and Kla- 
proth, and resemble exactly the iron found 
in the stones fallen from the atmosphere. We 
have every reason, therefore, to ascribe to 
VOL. 11. 
them the same original; and this accordingly 
is almost the uniform opinion of philosophers. 
Klaproth has shewn, that real native iron is 
distinguished from meteoric iron by the ab- 
sence of nickel. 
Upon the whole, we may consider these 
stony and metallic masses as fragments of 
fire-balls which have burst in the atmosphere ; 
but the origin and cause of these fire-balls 
will perhaps for ages bailie all the attempts 
of philosophers to explain them. 
METEOROLOGY, the doctrine of me-- 
teors, or the study of the variable phenomena 
of the atmosphere, in which also is commonly 
included the art of deducing probable con- 
jectures on the future state of the weather. 
Idle latter branch of this science was suc- 
cessfully cultivated by the antients ; and it 
subsists at this day among those whom neces- 
sity, arising from the nature of their occupa- 
tions, renders diligent in comparing the pre- 
sent appearances of the atmosphere, and cir- 
cumstances depending on its present state, 
with the changes which succeed. The apho- 
risms of Virgil, in his Georgies, are beauti- 
ful examples of this kind of skill, and possess 
philosophical, in an equal degree with poet- 
ical, merit. 
The atmosphere may be considered in re- 
spect of the direction of its currents or winds; 
of the variations in its gravity or pressure ; 
of the changes in its temperature ; of the 
state of the electricity which it exhibits ; and 
lastly, as to the visible phenomena which are 
supposed to depend on the foregoing ; and 
the regular notation of which, together with 
the other indications, will be found the only 
successful way of prosecuting this study. 
Since the invention of philosophical instru- 
ments, an attention to these has too much 
superseded the antient, and, singly consider- 
ed, the more rational, way of deducing prog- 
nostics ; it has been accordingly left to the 
ploughman, the mariner, and the fisherman; 
whose experience being successful without, 
would undoubtedly be more so with, the aid 
of instruments. 
Winds, though proverbially uncertain in 
some climates, are yet not Without a striking 
degree of regularity and system, if we con- 
sider the whole atmosphere ; and there is a 
part of the world where thewvind is so con- 
stantly in one quarter, that windward, in 
common speech, stands for eastern, and let- 
ward for western. We want only a more 
extensive set of observations to render ex- 
ceedingly probable the following hypothesis : 
That a large portion of the whole atmosphere 
moves constantly from east to west round the 
earth, on and near the equator ; that this is sup- 
plied and impelled by airfrom the temperate 
and cold latitudes on each side toward the 
poles ; which again receive, by a superior 
current, the overflow of the tropical regions, 
where the air, rarefied by the heat, is con- 
stantly rising and tending to lateral diffusion. 
This ’opinion, as will appear hereafter, is 
supported by many facts ; and it is certainly 
in theory a most beautiful provision tor that 
constant internal movement in the mass of 
the air, without which it could not probably 
serve the salutary purposes to animal and 
vegetable life which it does at present. The 
exceptions both in regular and irregular winds 
to such an hypothesis may perhaps be ac- 
counted for when the superior currents, which 
interest philosophers alone, and of which we 
know very little, shall have been more inves- 
tigated. See Wind. 
Variable winds evidently stamp the nature 
of every climate, and therefore depend upon 
causes which act with uniformity, notwith- 
standing all their apparent irregularity. 
They are all intimately connected with each 
other, and probably succeed each other in a 
certain order, though that order has not hi- 
therto been observed. All that can be done 
at present is, to offer a few unconnected re- 
marks. 
Winds appear usually to begin at that point 
towards which they blow. 4 hey must there- 
fore be owing to a rarefaction or displacing of 
the air in some particular qua: ter, either by 
the action of heat or some other cause! This 
is more particularly the case when the wind 
blows with violence. Hurricanes are uni- 
formly preceded by a great tall of the baro- 
meter ; and the wind often flows in every 
direction towards the place where the baro- 
meter stands so low. One would be tempted 
in this case to suppose the sudden decompo - 
sition of a portion of the atmosphere. Strong 
north-east winds have been repeatedly ob- 
served beginning at the quarter towards 
which they flow, in 1740, Dr. Franklin was 
prevented from observing an eclipse of the 
moon at Philadelphia by a north-east storm, 
which came on about seven o’clock in the 
evening. He was surprised to find after- 
wards that it had not come on at Boston till 
near 11 o’clock: and upon comparing all the 
accounts which he received from the several 
colonies of the beginning of this and other 
storms of the same kind, he found it to be al- 
ways an hour later the farther north-east for 
every 100 miles. 
“ From thence (says he) I formed an idea 
of the course of the storm, which I will ex- 
plain by a familiar instance. I suppose a 
long canal of water stopped by a gate. Tire 
water is at rest till the gate is opened; then 
it begins to move out through the gate, and 
the water next the gate is first in motion, and 
moves on towards the gate; and so on suc- 
cessively, till the water at the head of the 
canal is in motion, which it is last of all. In 
this case all the water moves indeed towards 
the gate ; but the successive times of begin- 
ning the motion are in the contrary way, viz. 
from the gate back to, the head of the canal. 
Thus, to produce a north-east storm, i sup- 
pose some great rarefraction of the air in or 
near the Gulf of Mexico; the air rising 
thenc* has its place supplied by the next 
more northern, cooler, and therefore denser 
and heavier air ; a successive current is 
formed, to which our coast and inland moun- 
tains give a north-eastern direction.” 
A similar storm was observed by Dr. Mit- 
chell in 1802. It began at Charlestown oa 
the 21st February, at two o’clock in the af- 
ternoon ; at Washington, which lies several 
hundred miles to the north-east, it was not 
observed till five o'clock; at New York it 
began at ten in the evening; and at Albany 
not till day break of the 22d. Its motion, 
from this statement, was 1100 miles in 11 
hours, or 100 miles in the hour. 
A remarkable storm of the same kind, and 
accompanied by an easterly wind, was ob- 
served in Scotland on the 8th of February 
1799- It was attended by a very heavy faR 
of snow, and the motion of the wind - was- 
