This Explanation Is Offered With All Deference
To Those Who Have Made Meteorology Their Special Study,
And As A Hint To Travelers Who May Have Opportunity To Examine The Subject
More Fully.
I often observed, while on a portion of the partition,
that the air by night was generally quite still,
But as soon as the sun's rays
began to shoot across the upper strata of the atmosphere in the early morning,
a copious discharge came suddenly down from the accumulated clouds.
It always reminded me of the experiment of putting a rod
into a saturated solution of a certain salt, causing instant crystallization.
This, too, was the period when I often observed the greatest amount of cold.
-
* Since the explanation in page 109 [Chapter 5 Paragraph 5] was printed,
I have been pleased to see the same explanation given
by the popular astronomer and natural philosopher, M. Babinet,
in reference to the climate of France. It is quoted from
a letter of a correspondent of the `Times' in Paris:
"In the normal meteorological state of France and Europe,
the west wind, which is the counter-current of the trade-winds
that constantly blow from the east under the tropics -
the west wind, I say, after having touched France and Europe
by the western shores, re-descends by Marseilles and the Mediterranean,
Constantinople and the Archipelago, Astrakan and the Caspian Sea,
in order to merge again into the great circuit of the general winds,
and be thus carried again into the equatorial current.
Whenever these masses of air, impregnated with humidity
during their passage over the ocean, meet with an obstacle,
such as a chain of mountains, for example, they slide up the acclivity,
and, when they reach the crest, find themselves relieved
from a portion of the column of air which pressed upon them.
Thus, dilating by reason of their elasticity, they cause
a considerable degree of cold, and a precipitation of humidity
in the form of fogs, clouds, rain, or snow.
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