and as a hint to travelers who may have opportunity to examine the subject more fully.  I often observed, while on a portion of the partition, that the air by night was generally quite still, but as soon as the sun’s rays began to shoot across the upper strata of the atmosphere in the early morning, a copious discharge came suddenly down from the accumulated clouds.  It always reminded me of the experiment of putting a rod into a saturated solution of a certain salt, causing instant crystallization.  This, too, was the period when I often observed the greatest amount of cold.

* Since the explanation in page 109 [Chapter 5 Paragraph 5] was printed, I have been pleased to see the same explanation given by the popular astronomer and natural philosopher, M. Babinet, in reference to the climate of France.  It is quoted from a letter of a correspondent of the ‘Times’ in Paris: 

“In the normal meteorological state of France and Europe, the west wind, which is the counter-current of the trade-winds that constantly blow from the east under the tropics—­the west wind, I say, after having touched France and Europe by the western shores, re-descends by Marseilles and the Mediterranean, Constantinople and the Archipelago, Astrakan and the Caspian Sea, in order to merge again into the great circuit of the general winds, and be thus carried again into the equatorial current.  Whenever these masses of air, impregnated with humidity during their passage over the ocean, meet with an obstacle, such as a chain of mountains, for example, they slide up the acclivity, and, when they reach the crest, find themselves relieved from a portion of the column of air which pressed upon them.  Thus, dilating by reason of their elasticity, they cause a considerable degree of cold, and a precipitation of humidity in the form of fogs, clouds, rain, or snow.  A similar effect occurs whatever be the obstacle they find in their way.  Now this is what had gradually taken place before 1856.  By some cause or other connected with the currents of the atmosphere, the warm current from the west had annually ascended northward, so that, instead of passing through France, it came from the Baltic and the north of Germany, thus momentarily disturbing the ordinary law of the temperatures of Europe.  But in 1856 a sudden change occurred.  The western current again passed, as before, through the centre of France.  It met with an obstacle in the air which had not yet found its usual outlet toward the west and south.  Hence a stoppage, a rising, a consequent dilation and fall of temperature, extraordinary rains and inundations.  But, now that the natural state of things is restored, nothing appears to prognosticate the return of similar disasters.  Were the western current found annually to move further north, we might again experience meteorological effects similar to those of 1856.  Hence the regular seasons may be considered re-established in France for several years to come.  The important