18^ ■ Instructions for Making and Registering 



meter, and other meteorological instruments, and of the winds 

 and weather throughout that extensive region of the Southern 

 Hemisphere, which is either included within the boundaries of 

 this colony, or readily accessible from it, has determined the 

 South African Literary and Philosophical Institution to request 

 the assistance of its correspondents, and of all who may have 

 leisure and inclination for observations of the kind, towards the 

 gradual accumulation of a continued and extensive series of me- 

 teorological Journals, and towards carrying into effect a concert- 

 ed plan of contemporaneous observations, on stated days, from 

 which it is conceived that much advantage will be derived. The 

 institution therefore solicits the attention of its correspondents, 

 and of the lovers of knowledge generally, to this object ; and 

 earnestly requests their co-operation in making, arranging, and 

 forwarding to its secretary, resident in Cape Town, observations 

 of the nature ; and, so far as practicable, according to the plan 

 of those hereafter detailed. Such observations alone can furnish 

 the materials necessary for an accurate and scientific inquiry 

 into the laws o{ climate, regarded as an object of local interest, 

 and are the only data through which (taken in conjunction with 

 the known laws of physics), the more general relations of meteo- 

 rology can be successfully investigated. 



It can scarcely be necessary to insist on the practical import- 

 ance of this science to the agriculturist, to the navigator, and in- 

 deed in every branch of human affairs, or to dilate on the bene- 

 fits which must accrue to mankind in general, from any success- 

 ful attempts to subject to reasonable and well-grounded predic- 

 tion the irregular and seemingly capricious course of the seasons 

 and the winds ; or on the advantages, purely scientific, which 

 must arise from a systematic development of laws exemplified 

 on the great scale in the periodical changes of the atmosphere, 

 depending, as they do, on the agency of all the most influential 

 elements, and embracing in their scope every branch of physical 

 science. It is more to the present purpose to observe that, from 

 what has already been done in this department of human know- 

 ledge, there is every reason to hope that no very distant period 

 may put us in possession of the key to many of the most intri- 

 cate meteorological phenomena, and enable us, though not to 

 predict with certainty the state of the weather at any given time 

 and place, yet at least to form something like a probable conjee- 



