654 
PROFESSOR JAMES THOMSON ON THE 
references; and to conclude with some considerations as to the reasons for or against 
the views put forward by various persons. 
The first opening up of considerations and discussions in the Royal Society on the 
subject of Atmospheric Circulation appears to have been made in a paper submitted 
to the Society, in 1684, by Dr. Martin Lister, Doctor of Physic of the University 
of Oxford, and published in the ‘ Transactions.’* As an illustration of the scanty 
and crude condition of knowledge and of thought on this great subject at that time— 
the middle period of the life of Sir Isaac Newton —I may be permitted to cite the 
views of Dr. Lister in his own words as offered briefly in that paper :— 
“ Among the known Sea Plants, the Sargosse, or Lenticula Marina, is not to be 
forgot; this grows in vast quantities from 36 to 18 Degrees Northern Latitude, and 
elsewhere, upon the deepest Seas. And I think (to say something by the by of that 
great Phenomenon of the Winds) irom the daily and constant breath of that Plant, the 
Trade or Tropick Winds do in great part arise : because the matter of that Wind, 
coming (as we suppose) from the breath of only one Plant it must needs make it 
constant and uniform : Whereas the great variety of Plants and Trees at Land must 
needs furnish a confused matter of Winds : Again the Levant Breezes t are briskest 
about Noon, the Sun quickening the Plant most then, causing it to breathe faster, and 
more vigorously ; and that Plants mostly languish in the night is evident from many 
of them which contract themselves and close at that time ; also from the effects of 
our winters upon them, which cause them to cast both fruit and leaves too; whereas 
they are said (the same Plants for kind) universally to flourish all the year alike 
within the Tropicks. 
“ As for the direction of this Breeze from East to West, it may be owing to the 
General current of the Sea, for a gentle Air will still be led with the stream of our 
Rivers, for example. Again every Plant is in some measure an Heliotrope, and 
bends itself, and. moves after the Sun, and consequently emits its vapours thither¬ 
ward, and so its direction is in that respect also owing in some measure to the 
Course of the Sun.” 
[Note. —The above is the whole passage given by Dr. Lister about Trade Winds. 
The rest of his paper relates, to entirely different subjects, chiefly to salt springs and 
brines.] 
In scrutinizing these utterances of Dr. Lister, we may notice that he must have 
been in possession of some information, more or less vague, to the effect that over 
extensive regions of the great oceans between the Tropics, or near to them, winds 
blowing from east towards west are prevalent; and that he has attempted to explain 
this prevalence by attributing it to the breath of a plant floating on the sea and 
turning “as an heliotrope” so as to blow its breath westward according to the 
* ‘ Phil. Trans.,’ No. 156, p. 494. Date February, 1683-84. 
t By “ Levant Breezes,” here Dr. Lister obviously means breezes from the east, in fact, the Trade 
Winds of the tropics.— James Thomson. 
