EDINBURGH 
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL 
Art. I. — On Isothermal Lines, and the Distribution of Heat 
over the Globe. By Baron Alexander de Humboldt 
The distribution of heat over the Globe belongs to that 
kind of phenomena, of which the general circumstances have 
been long known, but which were incapable of being rigorously 
determined or submitted to exact calculation, till experience 
and observation furnished data from which the theory might 
obtain the corrections and the different elements which it re- 
quires. The object of this memoir is to facilitate the collection 
of these data, to present results drawn from a great number of 
unpublished observations, and to group them according to a 
method which has not yet been tried, though its utility has 
been recognised for more than a century in the exposition of the 
phenomena of the variation and dip of the magnetic needle. 
As the discussion of individual observations will be published 
in a separate work, I shall at present limit myself to a simple 
sketch of the distribution of heat over the globe, according to 
the most recent and accurate data. Although we may not be 
able to refer the complex phenomena to a general theory, it 
• As this interesting and valuable Memoir, the original of which was published 
in the Memoires D'^Areueil, tom. iii. p. 462, has never appeared in our language, 
and as it must be constantly referred to in all subsequent speculations on Meteoro- 
logy, and should be familiar to every person who pursues this important study, we 
have resolved to present a translation of it to our readers. A small part of the 
memoir appeared in an English journal ; but almost all the reductions from the 
Centigrade to Fahrenheit’s scale were so erroneous, that the numbers qannot be 
trusted. We have added various notes, which will be distinguished from those of 
the Author by affixing Ed. to the former, and H to the latter. — E d. 
VOL. III. NO, 5 . JULY 1820 . A 
