192 
or prevented from any better connection. Whatever the use 
may he, the invention is beautiful. Mons. Lomond has many 
other curious machines, all the entire work of his own hands. 
Mechanical invention seems to be in him a natural propensity.” 
A Paper was read “ On the Present State of Meteorology,” 
by Mr. Thomas Hopkins, M.B.M.S. 
In this paper the Author represented that certain recent 
meteorological writers had abandoned the Hadleian theory, — 
of winds being caused by the ascent of sun-heated air in the 
tropical regions, and its passage through the upper atmo- 
spheric space, to descend in the polar regions, and return to 
the tropics. It was shown that great efforts had been made 
in different countries to discover the causes of those atmo- 
spheric disturbances which often take place, without much 
uniformity in the conclusions arrived at. From extensive 
researches made by American observers, Commander Maury 
had attempted to prove that near to each tropic there was the 
crest of a large atmospheric wave, from which air flowed 
down towards the equator on one side, and towards the pole 
on the other ; and that light air ascended from the surface in 
both the polar regions. Numerous English registrations have 
been placed in the hands of Admiral Fitzroy, who has not, 
like Commander Maury, promulgated a new hypothesis, but 
has exhibited what he considers the general action of cyclonic 
storms in middle latitudes ; this is, however, opposed to the 
Hadleian theory. Sir J. F. Herschel, in his elaborate work 
“ On Meteorology,” omits to notice the disturbing influence 
of the liberated heat of condensing vapour on the gases ; but 
he also abandons the old theory of winds, and attributes them 
to the action of aqueous vapour in a new form. It is con- 
tended by the writer, that the great cause of atmospheric 
disturbance is to be found in the local heating of gases by the 
liberated heat of condensing vapour. It is then pointed out 
that the term “ atmospheric wave ” is founded on a false 
