CHAPTER IX. THE APPLICATION OF THE CALCULUS OF…

The principle which serves as a basis for my theory of the tides may be extended to all the effects of hazard to which variable causes are joined according to regular laws. The action of these causes produces in the mean results of a great number of effects varieties which follow the same laws and which one may recognize by the analysis of probabilities. In the measure which these effects are multiplied those varieties are manifested with an ever-increasing probability, which would approach certainty if the number of the effects of the results should become infinite. This theorem is analogous to that which I have already developed upon the action of constant causes. Every time, then, that a cause whose progress is regular can have influence upon a kind of events, we may seek to discover its influence by multiplying the observations and arranging them in the most suitable order to indicate it. When this influence appears to manifest itself the analysis of probabilities determines the probability of its existence and that of its intensity; thus the variation of the temperature from day to night modifying the pressure of the atmosphere and consequently the height of the barometer, it is natural to think that the multiplied observations of these heights ought to show the influence of the solar heat. Indeed there has long been recognized at the equator, where this influence appears to be greatest, a small diurnal variation in the height of the barometer of which the maximum occurs about nine o'clock in the morning and the minimum about three o'clock in the afternoon. A second maximum occurs about eleven o'clock in the evening and a second minimum about four o'clock in the morning. The oscillations of the night are less than those of the day, the extent of which is about two millimeters. The inconstancy of our climate has not taken this variation from our observers, although it may be less appreciable than in the tropics. M. Ramond has recognized and determined it at Clermont, the chief place of the district of Puy-de-Dôme, by a series of precise observations made during several years; he has even found that it is smaller in the months of winter than in other months. The numerous observations which I have discussed in order to estimate the influence of attractions of the sun and the moon