O C 28293 5262728293031 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 w II 22 23 24 15 16 17 18192021 22 23 242526272829302 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 7021 22 23 24 25 728293031 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 17 19 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 18 19 20 21 22232425262728293032 XII. Meteorological Observations at Cork. By T. Holt, Esq. (With a Plate. See XCIII.) Cork, Feb. 3, 1819. 1 TRANSMIT you the meteorological scale and journal for Cork, kept during the last quarter of 1818; as also a summar of my observations for the whole year. I have the honour to be, Sir, with due respect, THOMAS HOLT. In Dr. E.D. Clarke's amusing volume of travels in Scandinavia, a phenomenon is described which seems rather to border upon impossibility. As the author is an occasional contributor to your pages, he will, perhaps, be kind enough to furnish a fuller explanation of the passage than appeared to him necessary in a work intended for general circulation. I am far from wishing to insinuate that the Doctor allows himself the traveller's licence, but cannot help observing that the circumstance, as it is stated in his work, is calculated to try the faith of his readers to the utmost. The passage to which I allude is the account of the appearance of the moon,* as observed by him on the road from Tornea to Kiemi, at p. 487. After having described the oval appearance of the moon's disc, he proceeds: "This changeful scenery still continued, varying at every instant at last there ensued a more remarkable appearance than any we had yet witnessed. The vapours dispersed, and all the rolling clouds disappeared, excepting a belt collected in the form of a ring, highly luminous, around the moon, which now appeared in a serene sky, like the planet Saturn augmented to a size 50 times greater than it appears through our best telescopes. The belt by which the moon's rays were reflected, became, beyond description, splendid, and the clear sky was visible between this belt and the full fair orb which it surrounded. Certainly if the same phenomenon had been visible in England, the whole country would have been full of it from one end of our island to the other." In reading this passage nothing remarkable is observed; for it is easy to conceive that a circle of clouds may have been formed through which the orb of the moon was visible, as represented in fig. 1. But as descriptions in words whether "demissa per aurem or on paper "Segnius irritant animos Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus " (viz. drawings); and as Dr. Clarke has accompanied his description with a wood-cut, which places the matter in a point of view entirely different, I intend on this cut to found my objections. Figure 2 is a copy of the representation which the Doctor has given of this phenomenon. Now it is evident that to produce The application of the term "planet" to the moon, at p. 485, is, I think, of doubtful authority, and should have been rejected by the philosophic Clarke. According to this new nomenclature, the satellites of Jupiter, of Saturn, and of Uranus, are all planets; however, "de minimis non curat lex." |