1883.] m Weather Knowledge in 1883. 331 



of upper strata observations. These may be classified under three 

 heads, Personal, Mechanical, and Optical. 



By personal observations, I mean those made on mountain stations 

 or in balloon ascents. 



Of Mountain Stations we have not yet had a fair trial in these 

 islands, for no mountain observatory, deserving the name, has yet been 

 built. The Scottish Meteorological Society are endeavouring, with 

 great zeal and considerable success, to raise funds to build and 

 maintain a station on Ben Nevis, the highest spot in the United 

 Kingdom, and to place it in telegraphic connection with Fort 

 William, and so with the postal telegraph wires in general, but 

 hitherto all that has been done is that the observer, Mr. C. L. 

 Wragge, has with a most praiseworthy exertion of energy, and in 

 the face of great difficulties, climbed the 4000 feet before 9 a.m. 

 daily for 4J months in 1881, and for 5 months in 1882. To give an 

 idea of what he occasionally experienced, I may quote his words in a 

 letter of November 1, 1882, printed in ' Nature ' : " The track was 

 snowed up, and it was necessary to force a way through great banks 

 and drifts of snow. The average dej^th was 2 feet ; once we got off 

 our course in the blackness of thick cloud-fog, and trackless snow." 



Mr. Wragge on each occasion, as soon as he reached Fort William 

 on his return, generally about 3 p.m., sent a telegram to us in 

 London. This never arrived before 5 p.m., so that it was practically 

 useless for all forecasting or storm warning on the day on which the 

 observation was made. We must therefore reserve our judgment as 

 to the usefulness of the proposed station until it is in efficient working 

 order, and the observations can reach us more promptly. 



As regards Balloons the observations are necessarily sporadic and 

 uncertain. No ascent is possible if the wind is at all strong. No 

 captive ascent can attain any great height, and no free ascent can be 

 made with a certainty of being able to send off a telegraphic message 

 when the observer reaches terra jirma^ for he may come down miles 

 from a telegraph station. 



The admitted im2)racticability of guiding a balloon, and the 

 liability to accidents, in the case of a squall, either on leaving the 

 ground or on returning to it, of both of which recent instances, one 

 unfortunately fatal, are on record, render it unadvisable to rest any 

 bopes of permanently extending our knowledge of the upper currents 

 Df the atmosphere by the aid of aeronauts. Moreover, they can never 

 give us reports at a fixed hour every day for the jDurpose of com- 

 pleting our charts. 



The mechanical method of observation may be soon dismissed : it 

 3onsists either in sending up instruments in small captive balloons, or 

 ittached to kites, or in placing them on elevated peaks. In all these 

 )ases the registration is to be effected by means of electricity. The 

 ipparatus devised by Sir W. Siemens, and lent by him to the 

 M!eteorological Society, has been in operation on Boston church tower 

 OT several months, and has worked well, and the same may be said 



