ATMOSPHERIC OSCILLATIONS*

Abstract

THE theory of the tides is one of the many offshoots of Newton's theories of mechanics and of gravitation. Much of the later development of these theories was achieved by the .great French school of mathematicians, and the first important steps in the theory of the atmospheric tides were made by Laplace (1774) and later described in his “Mécanique Céleste”. He also was the first to attempt to determine the lunar atmospheric tide from barometric observations ; he realized that tropical data were the most suitable for the purpose, but lacking them, he used 4,752 readings at Brest. His result, as he recognized, did not give the true tidal pressure variation at Brest, which is too small to be separated, in such a short series of data, from the solar daily variations and the much larger irregular changes associated with the weather.