Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 096.djvu/290

 mercury fell with some rapidity down to 29,65 with the wind from ESE. It was eight o'clock at night, and we prepared for a gale from that quarter; but at ten, the wind suddenly shifted to WNW, coming very light off the land. On its veering gradually round to SSW, clear of the land, at noon, 23d, it freshened, and the weather became thick; yet the mercury had then risen to 29,84, and at eight in the evening to 29,95, though the wind then blew strong. It continued to rise to 30,16 as the wind shifted round to SE, and fine weather came on; but on the wind passing round to ENE and NNE, which was off the land, the mercury fell back to 29,73, though the weather was fine and the wind moderate. On a sudden shift of wind to the SW, a fresh breeze with hazy weather, it again began to ascend, and a similar routine of wind, producing nearly the same effects upon the barometer, again took place. The effect of sea winds in raising the mercury, in opposition to a strong breeze, and of land winds in depressing it, though they were light, was here exemplified in two remarkable instances.

4th. In the neighbourhood of the Isle of St. of Nuyts, longitude 133½° east of Greenwich, we experienced a considerable change in the barometer. For nine days in January and February the wind continued to blow .constantly, though moderately, from the eastward, mostly from the SE. It appeared like a regular trade-wind or monsoon, but so far partook of the nature of sea and land breezes, as commonly to shift more to the southward in the day, and to blow more from east and NE in the night. The weather was very hazy during these nine days; so much so, that for six of them no observation of the sun's altitude, worthy of confidence, could