90 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



those offered by the open sea, or small ice-floes, then Pro- 

 fessor Fen-ell's proposition explains at once Dr. "Wojeikof ' s 

 generalization. PetermanrCs Mittheil., Ergiinzungsh., No. 38. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF METEOROLOGY. 



The annual report of the Radcliffe Observatory, delivered 

 at Oxford, June 29, states that the principal labors at that 

 institution continue, as formerly, to be given to the transit 

 circle and the heliometer, and that the meteorological ob- 

 servations made at that observatory are reduced much more 

 elaborately than is done at the greater number of astronom- 

 ical observatories, and are presented to the public in the 

 most scientific shape that they admit of. "I am also of the 

 opinion that they are worthy of the labor which is bestowed 

 upon them, and I differ in opinion from some eminent authors 

 as to the rank which meteorology already occupies among 

 the physical sciences. At all events, I think a similar system 

 of reduction should be employed at other observatories." 



SECULAR CHANGES OF CLIMATE. 



"The Indications of Spring" is the title of a work com- 

 municated to the Royal Society, in 1789, by Mr. Robert 

 Marsham. These indications were based upon observations, 

 commencing in the year 1736, by Robert Marsham, and which 

 were continued until 1812 by his descendants of the same 

 name. The record was again begun in 1836, and continued 

 until the present time by the Rev. H. P. Marsham. This rec- 

 ord of one hundred and forty years which we owe to the 

 Marsham family has preserved innumerable notes in refer- 

 ence to botanical and other natural-history phenomena, and, 

 for a greater portion of the time, the record was very full and 

 careful, the first Mr. Marsham being an observant naturalist, 

 and exceedingly fond of rural pursuits. An analysis of these 

 observations has recently been presented by Thomas South- 

 well to the Naturalist Society of Norfolk and Norwich, who 

 states that, as it has often been stated that "our old-fashion- 

 ed winters have departed," and that the springs have be- 

 come later, he has sought to test the question by taking the 

 average days of the occurrence of twenty-five different phe- 

 nomena indicative of the seasons during the years 1763 to 

 1774 inclusive. He did the same with the ten years ending 



