The present state of the science of which we are about to treat, cannot
be better defined than in the words of the celebrated Humboldt, who has
devoted a long life to the investigation of this department of Physics.
He says: "The processes of the absorption of light, the liberation of
heat, and the variations in the elastic and electric tension, and in the
hygrometric condition of the vast aerial ocean, are all so intimately
connected together, that each individual meteorological process is
modified by the action of all the others. The complicated nature of
these disturbing causes, increases the difficulty of giving a full
explanation of these involved meteorological phenomena; and likewise
limits, or _wholly precludes_ the possibility of that predetermination
of atmospheric changes, which would be so important for horticulture,
agriculture, and navigation, no less than for the comfort and enjoyment
of life. Those who place the value of meteorology in this problematic
species of prediction, rather than in the knowledge of the phenomena
themselves, are firmly convinced that this branch of science, on account
of which so many expeditions to distant mountainous regions have been
undertaken, has not made any very considerable progress for centuries
past. The confidence which they refuse to the physicist they yield to
changes of the moon, and to certain days marked in the calender by the
superstition of a by-gone age."
The charge thus skilfully repelled, contains, however, much truth; there
has been no adequate return of the vast amount of labor and expense thus
far devoted to this branch of knowledge. And it is not wonderful that
the popular mind should expect a result which is so much in accordance
with the wants of mankind. Who is there whose happiness, and health, and
comfort, _and_ safety, and prosperity, may not be more or less affected
by reducing to law, the apparently irregular fluctuations of the
weather, and the predetermination of the storm? To do this would be the
crowning triumph of the age; and the present theory has pioneered the
way for its speedy accomplishment.