748 COSMICAL PHYSICS 



of inestimable benefit to mankind, and predictions already made 

 in India for the ensuing season, while not entirely successful, have 

 still proved advantageous. A number of short cycles in the weather 

 have been detected, including a seven-day period in the temperature, 

 which Mr. Clayton found could be used for forecasting were it not 

 for an unexplained reversal in the phase of the temperature oscilla- 

 tion. 1 



The interesting question of the value of meteorological obser- 

 vations may appropriately conclude this address. Professor Schuster, 

 the English physicist, has recently denounced the practice of accu- 

 mulating these observations with no specific purpose. 2 To an extent 

 this criticism is valid in all the sciences, since those observations 

 are most useful when made by or for the person who is to utilize 

 them, but although modern meteorology demands special series of 

 observations to solve such problems as the temperature in cyclones 

 and anti-cyclones, it is sometimes true that long series of observations 

 made with one object in view may subsequently become valuable 

 for quite another purpose. For the study of climate and its possible 

 change long-continued observations in each country are a necessity, 

 though these might properly be confined to selected stations from 

 whose normals the values for other stations may be computed. 

 Professor Schuster's wish to limit the number of observations im- 

 plies that the existing series have been inadequately discussed, for 

 the reason that it is easier to find observers than competent investi- 

 gators. For this unfortunate condition the weather services of most 

 countries are chiefly to blame, because, being burdened with the 

 routine work of collecting climatological and synoptic data and 

 formulating and promulgating weather forecasts, which is the public 

 estimate of their entire duty, most Government meteorological 

 organizations concentrate their energies and expenditures on these 

 functions, and partially or completely neglect the researches by 

 which alone our knowledge of the mechanics of the atmosphere can 

 be increased. In this criticism must be included the United States 

 Weather Bureau (exception being made in favor of Professor Bige- 

 low's discussions), and the similar bureaus of such equally enlight- 

 ened countries as France and England. However, in the latter 

 country an attempt is now being made to create an Imperial meteor- 

 ological institute which could undertake the discussion of the great 

 mass of data accumulated in Great Britain and her colonies, espe- 

 cially the relations of solar phenomena to meteorology and magnet- 

 ism, and it is argued that this would contribute towards the form- 

 ation of a body of scientific investigators adequate to the needs 



1 Proceedings of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. xxxiv, p. 613 et 

 seq. 



2 Address at British Association, Belfast, 1902. Nature, vol. LXVI, pp. 617-618. 



