5175. METEOROLOGY, Slow progress in.—
Of all the departments of science no one seems to have been less advanced for the last
hundred years than that of meteorology. The
new chemistry, indeed, has given us a new
principle of the generation of rain, by proving
water to be a composition of different gases,
and has aided our theory of meteoric lights.
Electricy stands where Dr. Franklin's early
discoveries placed it, except with its new modification
of galvanism. But the phenomena of
snow, hail, halo, aurora borealis, haze, looming,
&c., are as yet very imperfectly understood.
I am myself an empiric in natural philosophy,
suffering my faith to go no further than my
facts. I am pleased, however, to see the efforts
of hypothetical speculation, because by the collisions
of different hypotheses, truth may be
elicited and science advanced in the end. This
skeptical disposition does not permit me to say
whether your hypothesis for looming and floating
volumes of warm air occasionally perceived,
may or may not be confirmed by future observations.
More facts are yet wanting to
furnish a solution on which we may rest with
confidence. I even doubt as yet whether the
looming at sea and on land is governed by the
same laws.—
To George F. Hopkins. Washington ed. vii, 259.
(M.
1822)
See Climate.
