90 Mr. Daniell on the Barometer. 



signated as hostile to the council of the Royal Society ; but I am 

 encouraged when I consider that it is only by inferior minds that 

 the correction of errors, and the suggestion of improvements, in 

 the pursuits of science, can ever be considered as acts of hostility. 



Great expectations, it is well known, were raised when it was 

 announced that a committee had been appointed, consisting of the 

 leading men of science, to take into consideration the state of 

 the meteorological instruments and register of the Royal Society. 

 I do not hesitate to affirm that the failure of an attempt, about 

 this time, to establish a society to promote the science of meteoro- 

 logy exclusively, was wholly owing to these expectations. Many 

 persons, who would otherwise have concurred most heartily in the 

 plan, waited to see the result of labours which they doubted not 

 would effect the object in view ; and feared that the new society 

 might bear too much the features of opposition: — as if any thing, 

 which had in view the promotion of science, could be considered 

 as opposed to the Royal Society ! The unusually-protracted time 

 of the publication of the register contributed to keep alive these 

 expectations. At length, in the beginning of the year 1825, ap- 

 peared the long- looked -for journal of 1823, — but no report from 

 the committee ! not one word of preface ! not a syllable about 

 the instruments ! A most disheartening similarity in the appear- 

 ance of the arrangement is the first thing to strike the eye ; and 

 it is only by a close examination that it can be inferred that 

 changes, and those very important changes, have been made. 



The register is divided as before into ten columns, and the im- 

 provements commence with the first, which contains the dates of 

 the month. To these are now prefixed the signs of the planets, 

 to denote the days of the week ! The alteration, at all events, is 

 harmless ; which, I fear, is more than can be predicated of all the 

 others. From the second column we may collect that the times 

 of observation have been changed to 9 A.M. and 3 P.M., except 

 not a few instances, in which it is to be presumed that these hours 

 did not suit the observer's convenience. Why the change was 

 made is left to conjecture. The title of the third column an- 

 nounces, for the first time, that the barometer is " corrected." 

 But how corrected ? Is it the instrument itself which is corrected 



