[footnote] *K??mtz, in Schumacher's 'Jahrbuch fur' 1838, s. 285. Regarding
the opposite distribution of heat in the east and the west of Europe and
North America, see Dove, 'Repertorium der Physik', bd. iii., s. 392-395.
The simultaneous thermic and hygrometric modifications of the upper regions
of the air can only be learned (when direct observations on mountain
stations or aerostatic ascents are impracticable) from hypothetical
combinations, by making the barometer serve both as a thermometer and an
hygrometer. Important changes of weather are not owing to merely local
causes, situated at the place of observation, but are the consequence of a
disturbance in the equilibrium of the aerial currents at a great distance
from the surface of the Earth, in the higher strata of the atmosphere,
bringing cold or warm, dry or moist air, rendering the sky cloudy or serene,
and converting the accumulated masses of clouds into light feathery 'cirri'.
As, therefore, the inaccessibility of the phenomenon is added to the
manifold nature and complication of the disturbances, it has always appeared
to me that meteorology must first seek its foundation and progress in the
torrid zone, where the variations of the atmospheric pressure, the course of
hydro-meteors, and the phenomena of electric explosion, are all of periodic
occurrence.
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