Mr. Flinders’s Observations 
264 
small contribution of raw materials to the hands of the 
manufacturer, happy if he can make them subservient to the 
promotion of meteorological science. 
I will conclude with stating a few general remarks upon 
the barometer, such as may be useful to seamen. 
It is not so much the absolute, as the relative height of the 
mercury, and its state of rising and falling, that is to be 
attended to in forming a judgment of the weather that will 
succeed ; for it appears to stand at different heights, with the 
same wind and weather, in different latitudes. 
In the open sea, it seems to be the changes in the weather, 
and in the strength of the wind, that principally affect the 
barometer ; but near the shore, a change in the direction of 
the wind seems to affect it full as much, or more, than either 
of those causes taken singly. 
It is upon the south and east coasts of any country in the 
southern, or the north and east coasts in the northern hemi- 
sphere, where the effect of sea and land winds upon the baro- 
meter is likely to be the most conspicuous. 
In the open sea, the mercury seems to stand higher in a 
steady breeze of several days continuance, from whatever 
quarter it comes, provided it does not blow hard, than when 
the wind is variable from one part of the compass to another ; 
and perhaps it is on this account, as well as from the direction 
of the wind, that the mercury stands higher within the tropics, 
than, upon the average, it appears to do in those parallels 
where the winds are variable and occasionally blow with 
violence. 
The barometer seems capable of affording so much assis- 
