Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 1: Containing a collection of some of the principal phaenomena in nature, accounted for by the greatest philosophers of this age
History
Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 1: Containing a collection of some of the principal phaenomena in nature, accounted for by the greatest philosophers of this age
Natural history; Science -- Early works to 1800; Voyages and travels -- Early works to 1800
It remains therefore to substitute some other Cause, capable of
producing a like constant Effect, not liable to the same Objections, but
agreeable to the known Properties of the Elements of Air and Water, and
the Laws of the Motion of fluid Bodies. Such an one is, I conceive, the
Action of the Sun Beams upon the Air and Water, as he passes every Day
over the Oceans, consider'd together with the Nature of the Soil, and
Situation of the adjoining Continents: I say therefore, first, that
according to the Laws of _Staticks_, the Air which is less rarified or
expanded by heat, and consequently more ponderous, must have a Motion
towards those parts thereof, which are more rarified, and less
ponderous, to bring it to an _Æquilibrium_; and secondly, That the
Presence of the Sun continually shifting to the Westwards, that part
towards which the Air tends, by reason of the Rarifaction made by his
greatest _Meridian_ Heat, is with him carried Westward, and consequently
the tendency of the whole Body of the lower Air is that way.
Thus a general Easterly Wind is formed, which being impressed upon all
the Air of a vast Ocean, the Parts impel one the other, and so keep
moving till the next return of the Sun, whereby so much of the Motion as
was lost, is again restored, and thus the Westerly Wind is made
perpetual.
From the same Principle it follows, that this Easterly Wind should on
the North side of the _Æquator_, be to the Northwards of the East, and
in South Latitudes to the Southwards thereof; for near the _Line_, the
Air is much more rarified, than at a greater distance from it; because
of the Sun twice in a Year Vertical, and at no time distant above 23
Degr. and a half; at which distance the Heat, being as the Sine of the
Angle of Incidence, is but little short of that of the perpendicular
Ray. Whereas under the Tropicks, though the Sun stay long Vertical, yet
he is as long 47 Degr. off; which is a kind of Winter, wherein the Air
so cools, as that the Summer-heat cannot warm it to the same degree with
that under the Æquator. Wherefore the Air to the Northwards and
Southwards, being less rarified than that in the middle, it follows,
that from both sides it ought to tend towards the Æquator: This Motion
compounded with the former Easterly Wind, answers all the _Phænomena_ of
the general Trade-winds; which, if the whole Surface of the Globe were
Sea, would undoubtedly blow all round the World, as they are found to do
in the _Atlantick_, and _Æthiopick_ Oceans.
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