most favourite studies. So comparatively limited is our positive knowledge of atmospheric phenomena, that a careful investigation of them afforded the prospect of new and important discoveries; while the endless variety of appearances which they present, and the complicated influences which operate in producing them, offered a wide and interesting field for the exercise of that speculative kind of inquiry which Lamarck loved to indulge. With his usual facility in such matters, he was not long in advancing a theory, according to which the atmosphere is regarded as resembling the sea, having a surface, waves, and storms; it ought, likewise, to have a flux and reflux, for the moon ought to exercise the same influence upon it that it does on the ocean. In the temperate and frigid zones, therefore, the wind, which is only the tide of the atmosphere, must depend greatly on the declination of the moon; it ought to blow towards the pole that is nearest to it, and advancing in that direction only, in order to reach every place, traversing dry countries or extensive seas, it ought then to render the sky serene or stormy. If the influence of the moon on the weather is denied, it is only that it may be referred to its phases; but its position in the ecliptic is regarded as affording probabilities much nearer the truth[1].
- ↑ On the Influence of the Moon on the Earth's Atmosphere; Journal de Physique, Prairial, an. vi. Most of Lamarck's other essays on Meteorology will be found in the periodical just named.
