THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



JANUARY, 1880. 



THE mTEKXATIOIs^AL WEATHEPw-SERYICE. 



By Professor T. B. MAUKY. 



THE " weather " is that mystic word which sums up the physical 

 influences most affecting the human frame for good or ill. The 

 splendid, ever-varying panorama of the sky, the benign mutations of 

 the seasons, the immense pulsations of the atmosphere furnished, how- 

 ever, for ages, themes for the poet rather than for the philosopher. In 

 the presence of its tremendous though cloud-veiled forces, as the high 

 priest of old on the entrance of the sanctuary, we tread with awed 

 footstep. From time immemorial its phenomena have engaged the 

 daily and deepest attention of men ; and the ever-popular, ever-com- 

 pulsory study of their changes, in the language of all civilized nations, 

 has been called "meteorology," which literally means "the science of 

 the sublime." "Distance and time," says the physical geographer 

 Ansted, " seem annihilated when we watch the action of these mys- 

 terious influences, and we may almost recognize the reality of an ex- 

 istence unhampered by natural impediments when we find an instanta- 

 neous response of our innermost senses to a material stimulus applied 

 within the burning atmosphere of the sun." But the overmastering 

 interest and awe, awakened by the terrestrial atmosphere, through 

 which this stimulus reaches us, are intensified by the consciousness 

 that upon it we depend for vital breath, and that it is the medium 

 through which an invisible hand sweeps every chord of humanity. 



It is to that grand and systematic investigation of this physical 

 agent, which has recently been commenced by the concert of the na- 

 tions, in a system of world-wide " Simultaneous " observations, known 

 as The International Weather-Service — to its history, methods, and 

 utilities — we would now direct the reader's indulgent attention, Be- 



TOL. XVI. — 19 



