238 METEOROLOGY AND ALLIED SUBJECTS. 



(13 Via La Grange), but its scientific president (Prof. P. F. Denza) at 

 the Carl Albert Observatory, Moncalieri. 



The publications of the previous government bureau and of the ear- 

 lier association have also been combined in some respects, and those of 

 the central office now appear in magnificent royal folios, of which the 

 first volume is that for 1879. (Anuali dell' ufficio centrale di Meteoro- 

 logia Italiaua, Serie II, Vol. 1, 1879, Koma, 1880.) The office has 69 first- 

 class stations, aud maintains a daily bulletin of telegraphic reports, and 

 a ten-day summary of data of interest to at»riculture. The annals con- 

 tain numerous memoirs by Chistoni, Cantoni, Tacchini, &c., the detailed 

 observations at 49 stations, and the astronomical work done at the Ob- 

 servatory Collegio Komano by Tacchini and Millesovich. 



In France the Bureau Centrale de Meteorologie has assumed the pub- 

 lication of observations made at all the French stations ; a similar step 

 was taken in the United States when the Army Signal Office, in 1874, 

 assumed charge of the voluntary as well as the enlisted observers. 

 Therefore the annuaire of the Meteorological Society of France, begin- 

 ning with its twenty-eighth year, 1880, appears in a somewhat modified 

 form, containing only monthly summaries of its eleven stations, and 

 devoting much more space to original memoirs and to reviews of other . 

 publications relating to meteorology. 



At the suggestion of H. C. Eussell, an Intercolonial Meteorological 

 Conference M^as held at the Sydney Observatory, N. S. W., November 

 11 to 14, 1879, to consider propositions for improving the system of 

 weather signals, and securing more united action in regard to weather 

 telegrams. At this conference numerous propositions, seventy-four in 

 all, were adopted relative to all the colonies of Australasia, as well 

 as to the subject of different stations, uniform methods, apparatus, and 

 times, mountain stations, priority of weather reports, telegraph cipher 

 codes, &c. 



The second Inter-colonial Congress was held at the Melbourne Obser- 

 vatory April 21 to 27, 1881. The various colonial government meteor- 

 ologists reported upon the many i)oints in which progress had been 

 made during the previous eighteen months. Dr. Hector stated that in 

 New Zealand, in 1867, he had urged the importance of this work, and 

 that the unscientific work of the weather-forecasting department, which 

 had been carried on since 1874 by Captain Edwin, had now, since June, 

 1881, been superseded by the weather charts and daily predictions for 

 each of five districts by the government meteorologists. His outly- 

 ing stations had been extended to the Feejee Islands and to Chat- 

 ham. Messrs. Eussell, of Sydney, and Todd, of Adelaide, and Ellery, of 

 Melbourne, reported upon improv^ements in the daily maps and bulletins, 

 on new high stations, and other improvements. The discussion then 

 turned on methods of exposing thermometers, the measure of evapora- 

 tion, the reliability of anemometers, (Ellery has established one of 

 Hagemann's vacuum anemometers, and Eussell has used a jjortable 



