"During the whole of this gradual ascent, he noticed, at short intervals, the state of the barometer, the thermometer, and the hygrometer. Of these observations, amounting in all to twenty-one, he has given a tabular view. We regret, however, that he has neglected to mark the times at which they were made, since the results appear to have been very materially modified by the progress of the day. It would likewise have been desirable to have compared them with a register, noted every half hour, at the Observatory. From the surface of the earth to the height of 12,125 feet, the temperature of the atmosphere decreased regularly, from 82 deg. to 47 deg. 3' by Fahrenheit's scale; _but afterward it increased again, and reached to 53 deg. 6' at the altitude of 14,000 feet_; evidently owing to the influence of the warm currents of air which, as the day advanced, rose continually from the heated ground. From that point the temperature diminished, with only slight deviations from a perfect regularity. At the height of 18,636 feet the thermometer subsided to 32 deg. 9', on the verge of congelation; but it sunk to 14 deg. 9' at the enormous altitude of 22,912 feet above Paris, or 23,040 feet above the level of the sea, the utmost limit of the balloon's ascent." The high range of the barometer indicated a very considerable elevation of the trade at the time Gay-Lussac made his ascension. I am not aware that it has since been found at so great an elevation, in so high a latitude, though it is undoubtedly elevated by the interposition of a large volume of N. W. air, upon some occasions, to nearly the same altitude with us. In the extract in relation to the ascension of Gay-Lussac, we have another of the thousand hastily-adopted and absurd hypotheses connected with the caloric theory. It is obviously and utterly _impossible_ that in addition to the ordinary accumulation of heat at the surface of the earth "_as the day advanced_"--that is, _during the forenoon_, warm currents should ascend, unobserved by Gay-Lussac during an ascent of 12,000 feet--not _affecting in the least_ so large an intervening body of the atmosphere or his thermometer, and in such immense volumes as to increase the warmth of a stratum of 4,000 feet in depth, an average of 3 deg. of Fahrenheit, and to the extent of 6 deg. at the center. Very few balloon ascensions have been made with a view to scientific and accurate observation. But other aeronauts have met the counter-trade at different altitudes, and in both clear and stormy weather. Recently, in 1852, four ascensions were made in England, under the direction of the Kew Observatory Committee, of the British Association. I copy from the August number of the "London, Edinburg, and Dublin Magazine," for 1853, the following condensed amount of the result: