METEOROLOGY. 377 



of the society with the Eoyal Society's standards, and leave was granted 

 March 13, 1838. A vokirae of Transactions was published in 1839, and 

 among other articles contains one entitled "liemarks on the present 

 state of meteorological science, by John duskin." The cost of the pub- 

 lication of this volume exhausted the funds of the society, but in 1841 

 Mr. Gutch undertook personally the pecuniary risk of a new publica- 

 tion entitled the Quarterly Journal of Meteorology; but this does not ap- 

 ])ear to have been very successful owing to the high rate of postage. 

 Shortly after this the society practically came to an end. On April 3, 

 1850, a meeting of some friends of the science was convened by Dr. Lee, 

 at Hartwell, when the "British Meteorological Society" was established, 

 and Mr. S. C. Whitbread elected president. The first general meeting- 

 of the members was not held till March 25, 1851, but in the meanwhile 

 several important steps had been taken by the council. Annual reports 

 were published from 1851 to 1861, and since then five volumes of the 

 Proceedings and six volumes of the Quarterly Journal have been pub- 

 lished. Up to 1858 nothing had been done towards forming a library, 

 but in 1862 a catalogue was published containing about 200 titles. In 

 1876 a new catalogue was issued, which extends to 80 pages and con- 

 tains over 1,200 entries. On January 27, 1860, the society obtained a 

 royal charter of incorporation, and has since been known as the "Mete- 

 orological Society." On April 4, 1872, the council resolved upon taking 

 a room for an office and for the protection of the library, and appointed 

 Mr. Mariott as their assistant secretary. The subsequent eight years 

 have been characterized bj- great progress. A series of second-order 

 stations has been organized, which are systematically inspected and at 

 which strictly comparable observations are made. On January 1, 1880, 

 another and larger series of stations, called climatological, was started, 

 at which the observations are less onerous than those at the second- 

 order stations, but at which they are required to be equally accurate- 

 Observations on natural periodical jihenomena are also made at many 

 places, and discussed yearlj' by the Rev. T. A. Preston. 



At the request of the society a conference has been appointed, con- 

 sisting of delegates from several other societies, to prepare accurate 

 instructions respecting the erection of lightning-conductors. (Nature^ 

 January 27, 1881, xxiii, p. 307.) 



Prof. W. Forster, the director of the Berlin Observatory, made an 

 interesting communication to the Geographical Society of Berlin re- 

 garding one of the most important tasks of travelers in unknown 

 regions, i. e., the exact determination of latitude, longitude, and eleva- 

 tion above sea-level. In several of the results of recent German 

 expeditions serious errors in this regard were detected. Professor 

 Forster stated that the Berlin Observatory staff would shortly be in a 

 position to undertake the practical and theoretical instruction of trav- 

 elers and to superintend the selection, testing, and packing of the neces- 



