Meteorological Observations. 137 



ture as to what will be the general course of the next ensuing 

 season — perhaps to prepare us beforehand for violent and long- 

 continued gales of wind, great droughts, or extraordinarily wet 

 seasons, &c. in the same manner that our knowledge of the na- 

 ture and laws of the tides, although confessedly imperfect, and, 

 in a great measure, empirical, yet enables us to announce, be- 

 forehand, unusually high or low tides. No doubt such predic- 

 tions of the weather, although only of a probable nature, would 

 be highly valuable and useful, and would materially influence 

 the practice of men in all operations thereon depending. In iUi 

 lustration of this, we need only refer to the value set by many- 

 farmers and others on weather-tables, founded on no sound prin- 

 ciples, and ratified at best, if at all, only by a very partial and 

 limited experience ; or, to choose a better instance, we may cite 

 the importance which is now attached by every seaman to the 

 indications of the barometer, and the numerous cases with which 

 nautical records abound, of great mischief, or even shipwreck, 

 avoided by timely attention to its warnings. 



Meteorology, however, is one of the most complicated of all 

 the physical sciences, and that -in which it is necessary to spread 

 our observations over the greatest extent of territory, and the 

 greatest variety of local and geographical position. It is only 

 by accumulating data from the most distant quarters, and by 

 comparing the affections of the atmosphere at the same instant 

 at different points, and at the same point at different moments, 

 that it is possible to arrive at distinct and useful conclusions. 

 Hence arises the necessity of procuring regular series of obser- 

 vations made on a uniform system, and comparable with them- 

 selves and with each other, by observers at different stations, and 

 of multiplying the points of observation as much as possible over 

 the interior surface of continents — along sea-coasts — in islands 

 —and in the open ocean. 



The geographical position of this colony renders it perhaps 

 the most interesting and important situation on the surface of 

 the globe for observations of this nature : first, whether we re- 

 gard it either as an advantageous station for observing the com- 

 mencing action of the great counter- current of the trade-winds, 

 where it first strikes the earth''s surface, and, combined with the 

 action of the heated surface of the African Promontory, gives 



