May 28, I860.] METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 163 



acquaintance with the nature and succession of the prevalent or 

 various winds over the earth and ocean. 



Consequent on the recorded observations of numerous con- 

 tributors* to meteorological science, we have now a general and, 

 in some branches, a detailed acquaintance with the subject ; we 

 have good instruments and tables, and the use of them is better 

 known. 



Her Majesty's Government has endeavoured to diifuse practical 

 knowledge of winds, weather^ currents, storms, and climates, not 

 only among mariners engaged in voyages to distant regions, but 

 among the coasters and fishermen along our own shores. 



Instruments and instructions have been liberally lent (at the 

 public expense) to selected captains of ships; while other such 

 aids, of a kind expressly sui^table, have been similarly lent to more 

 than thirty of the most exposed and least affluent fishing- villages. 



The hardy populations of these places have already derived 

 much benefit and have strongly expressed their sense of gratitude 

 for the use of these barometers, thermometers, and plain instruc- 

 tions; while the registers returned from numerous ships among 

 the finest of our merchantmen, besides men-of-war, now constitute 

 a mine of valuable maritime and scientific information. 



Among many results indirectly or immediately flowing from the 

 recorded observations on board so many ships thus supplied by 

 Government with reliable instruments, verified at the Kew Obser- 

 vatory, has been one which cannot be too widely known among 

 voyagers, — namely, that near the equator, between five and ten 

 degrees of north latitude, the range of the barometer is so small and 

 so regular, as to time, that any such or similar instrument may be 

 verified, while crossing that zone, more satisfactorily than by a 

 removal to the shore for comparison with a standard, a test also of 

 the utmost value to meteorological records made on long voyages 

 with uncompared instruments. 



Another simj3le result deduced from multiplied observations, and 

 as important as it is simple, is that in a gale or s^orm, while facing 

 the wind, the centre of the circling or cyclonic current of the 

 atmosphere is to the right in north latitude, but to the left in the 

 southern hemisphere. 



* Dampier, Halley, Hadley, Dc Foe, Franklin, Cook, Capper, Flinders, Eedfield, 

 Dove, Daniells, Ksemtz, Espy, Sabine, Reid, Piddington, Herschel, and Humboldt, 

 besides many other original observers ; and compilers, among whom is the popular 

 Maury. 



