If a metallic rod terminating in a point be attached to the conductor of an electrical machine, electricity escapes in large quantities from the point. A continuous current is thus kept up and the flame of a taper, if placed in front of the current, is blown in a horizontal direction. Wind is thus manufactured on a small scale. Pl. IV.
At a recent meeting of a Meteorological Society in England, a paper was read by the Rev. Joseph Crompton, M.A., F.M.S. "The author, when walking close to the Cathedral of Norwich, was struck with the unusual fluttering of the flags on the top of the spire, which was 300 feet high. They were streaming with a strained, quivering motion perpendicularly upwards. A heavy cloud was passing overhead at the moment and as it passed, the flags followed the cloud and then gradually dropped into comparative quietness. The same phenomenon was noticed several times. As the cloud approached, the upper banner began to feel its influence and streamed towards it, against the direction of the wind, which still blew as before, steadily on all below. As the cloud came nearer, the vehement quivering and streaming motion of the flags increased; they began to take an upward perpendicular direction into the cloud and seemed almost tearing themselves from the staves to which they were fastened. Again as the cloud passed, they followed it as they had previously streamed to meet its approach, and then dropped away as before, one or two actually folding over their staves. All the other flags at the lower elevation did not show the least symptom of disturbance." In this phenomenon we observe the operation of two of the wind-producing causes just mentioned, viz.:—a wind arising from purely local causes, and of limited extent, occurring within the boundaries of a wind produced by the action of more general, and widespread causes—A wind within a wind.
The above instances plainly carry a suggestion of magnetic origin and power.
Winds may not arise from Presumed Causes.
If winds are due to such a simple mechanical causation as the production by the sun, of a rarefied atmosphere, the colder air rushing in from all sides into the empty spaces, we should hardly expect to find any definite currents bounded by well-defined limits; much less should we look for transverse and opposite currents going like messengers at varying rates of speed, some slow, and others exceedingly swift. Nor may stronger gales suddenly cease, as though stopped by some mighty invisible wall. And in no wise can they, from mere calorific agencies, leap out of perfect calmness into hurricane velocity, or subside into silence as by magic. On no such principle can they shift back upon their own track, going either way with terrific velocity.
A Great Cosmical System.
We have seen the marks of electrical action in the cases cited, and since we know something of the subtlety of the agent; that it may be "amassed, condensed and rarefied," that it is not loose and wandering, and the mere plaything of fortuitous forces, as the atmosphere is supposed to be; but, on the contrary, has close and most sympathetic adjustment with the earth-force; and that it is the invisible hand that holds and manages the grosser atmospheric matter; since we know this, we are now brought to the study of a great cosmical system.