X. Observations upon the marine barometer, made during the examination of the coasts of New Holland and New South Wales, in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803

Abstract

A fore-knowledge of the wind and weather is an object so very interesting to all classes of men, and the changes in the mercurial barometer affording the means which appear most conducive to it, a system that should with certainty explain the connection between the variations of the mercury and those in the atmosphere under all circumstances, becomes greatly desirable; to seamen, more especially, whose safety and success depend so much upon being duly prepared for changes of wind, and the approaching storm, it would be an acquisition of the first importance: in a more extended view, I may say, that the patriot and the philanthropist must join with the philosopher and the mariner in desiring its comple­tion. So long and widely-extended a course of observation, however, seems requisite to form even a basis for it, that a complete system is rather the object of anxious hope than of reasonable expectation. Much has been done towards it, but so much appears to remain, that any addition to the common stock, however small, or though devoid of philosophical accuracy, I have thought would be received by the learned with candour. With this prepossession, I venture to submit to them some observations upon the movement and state of the mercury upon the coasts of New Holland and New South Wales, the Terra Australis, or Australia, of the earlier charts.