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REPORT ON METEOROLOGY. 



Report of the Committee on Meteorology of the American Associatwn for 

 the Promotion of Science, on the arrangement of a System of Combined 

 Meteorological Observations for JMorih America. Adopted .dugvsi, 



The Committee on Meteorology, to whom was referred by the Associa- 

 tion the " Proposition for extending the system of meteorological observa- 

 tions now in operation under the direction of the Smithsonian Institutioii," 

 respectfully present their report, and ask of the Standing Committee their 

 consideration of it, and of the lesolutions appended to it, so that they may 

 be presented, if approved, to the Association at the present meeting. 



It is not necessary, at the present day, to go into any argument on the 

 importance of such observations. Wherever civilization extends, their 

 value is recognized, and they are sustained by private and public exertions. 

 At different times systems of observations have been organized by different 

 governments and societies of the Old World, for determining the general 

 and particular questions which occur; and in our country, the general 

 government, and several of the State governments, as New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Massachusetts, have kept up, for a limited time, several series of 

 meteorological observations, from which results of high importance have 

 been derived. 



Recently the British government have determined to maintain the Mag- 

 netical and Meteorological Observatory at Toronto, where full observations 

 are made with instruments registering by photographic methods. Our o"vni 

 government still keeps up the observations ui the military posts, under the 

 enlightened supervision of the surgeon-genera! of the army. The Treasury 

 Department has, not long since, expressed thr opinion that the keepers of 

 Jight-houses should be sufficiently well instructed to make such observa- 

 tions. The Na\y .Department fosters Die ineteorological observations under 

 the direction ofihe Smithsonian Inslilutio)!. The Hudson's Bay Company 

 have recently consented, on application i»l ihe Association, to establish 

 observations at such of their posts as might seem desirable to the Associa- 

 tion. The States of New York and ol' Massachusetts have renewed their 

 action in the matter. There is a great desire to profit by these very favora- 

 ble circumstan<X'S of our country, and of Ihe iiresent day, to oi-ganize a 

 system which shall connect all these elfoits, otiierwise isolated, and to derive 

 from these and from similar ones the means of advancing the knowledge of 

 the meteorology of North America. 



We expect to derive from systematic obseivations, extended over as 

 much of our continent as is accessible to us, at stations selected in reference 

 to the problems to be made out, a thorough knowledge of our climate inr 

 all its relations, and of its variations in the same and in different localities. 

 The mean temperature of points is to be determined with carefully verified 

 instruments, similar to each other, similarly placed, and observed under the 

 same rules and conditions; the lines of equal mean temperature will result, 

 and the variations at different seasons will be shown. The limits of vege- 

 tation will be found, and the areas of '-limiite adapted to the cereals. The 



