54 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



stitution, as well as to the committee on immigration of the House 

 of Assembly, for the purpose of furnishing facts relative to the 

 climate, of importance to settlers, and recently the department of 

 royal engineers has applied for the returns, with a view to the con- 

 sideration of their bearing on questions of defence. 



To secure a greater degree of responsibility, and to promote the 

 eflSciency of the system, the government has provided for the pay- 

 ment of fifty cents a day to the teachers of the grammar schools at 

 the stations before enumerated, as remuneration for the service ren- 

 dered. 



Under the direction of the distinguished academician Kupfer, there 

 is established over the vast Russian territory a network of thirty 

 meteorological stations, where are noted the various changes of the 

 atmosphere as to temperature, pressure, moisture, &c. The most 

 northern of these stations is at Hammerfest, in 70° 41' north latitude, 

 21^ 26' east longitude from Paris, and the most southern is at Tiflis, 

 in 41° 42' north latitude, and 42° 30' east longitude. A similar 

 system of simultaneous observations has been for several years in op- 

 eration in Great Britain and Ireland, in connexion with the Board of 

 Trade, and under the direction of the late Admiral Fitzroy. Other 

 and like systems have been established in France, Italy, and Holland. 

 From these different organizations, as well as from insulated observa- 

 tories, telegrams of the weather are sent every morning, at seven 

 o'clock, from the principal cities of Europe to Paris, where, under the 

 superintendence of the celebrated Leverrier, they are discussed, and 

 the results transmitted by mail to all parts of the world in the suc- 

 cessive numbers of the daily International Bulletin. A similar publi- 

 cation is periodically made in Italy, under the direction of M. Mat- 

 teucci, so well and favorably known by his discoveries in physics. 

 The British government has also established a system of observations 

 for the sea, and furnished its navy with accurate instruments, care- 

 fully compared with the standards of the Kew observatory. It is es- 

 timated in a report to Parliament that, through an annual appropria- 

 tion of about fifty thousand dollars, statistics may be collected in 

 fifteen years sufficient, with w^hat has already been obtained, to deter- 

 mine the average movement of the winds on every part of the ocean. 



From the great interest which has been awakened in regard to me- 

 teorology throughout the world, and the improved methods which 

 have been adopted in its study, it can scarcely be doubted that in a 

 few years the laws of the general movements of the atmosphere will 

 be ascertained, and the causes of many phenomena of the weather, 

 which have heretofore been regarded as little else than the. capricious 



