Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 001.djvu/165

 high Winds or Calms? whether in wet weather or dry? whether most when a North, or when a South, when an East or a West wind blows? and whether it keeps the same seasons of Changes? and whether the seasons and changes of the Air and Weather can be thereby discover'd, and the now hidden causes of many other Phænomena detected?

The said Doctor is so much pleased with the discovery already made by the help of this Instruments, that he thinks it to be one of the most wonderful that ever was in the World, if we speak of strangeness, and just wonder, and of Philosophical importance, separate from the interest of lucre. For (saith he, in one of his Letters) who could ever expect, that we men should find an Art, to weigh all the Air that hangs over our heads, in all the Changes of it, and, as it were, to weigh, and to distinguish by weight, the Winds and the Clouds? Or, who did believe, that by palpable evidence we should be able to prove, the serenest Air to be most heavy, and the thickest Air, and when darkest Clouds hang neerest to us, ready to dissolve, or dropping, then to be lightest. And though (so he goes on) we cannot yet reach to all the Uses and Applications of it; yet we should be entertain'd for a while, by the truly Honourable Mr. Boyle, as the leading person herein, upon the delight and wonder. The Magnet was known many hundreds of years before it was applied to find out New Worlds. To me (saith he) tis a wonderful delight, that I have alwaies in my Study before my eye such a Curious Ballance.

Having thus in General expressed his thoughts about this Invention, and the singular pleasure, he takes in the Observations made therewith, he descends to particulars, and in several Letters communicates them to his Correspondent, as follows:

1. My Wheel-barometer I could never fill so exactly with Mercury, as to exclude all Airs and therefore I trust more Rh