476 Professor Schuster on Atmospheric Electricity. [Feb. 22, 



parts of the earth's surface, many important problems cannot be satis- 

 factorily solved. Arctic and antarctic expeditions are of interest to 

 scientific men, not because they care much whether we get a few miles 

 nearer the pole, but because a well-conducted party collects invaluable 

 information on its journey. Although much remains to be done in 

 the regions surrounding the north magnetic pole, our knowledge in 

 the southern hemisphere is almost disgracefully inadequate, and it is 

 to be hoped that before long a well-equipped expedition may fill up 

 to a certain extent the large gaps in our electrical and magnetical 

 knowledge which at present stop so many of our researches. 



But although investigations to be conducted in the Arctic regions 

 are of primary importance, we may do much nearer home in extend- 

 ing and completing existing information. Instrumental appliances 

 and methods of observation, originally put into a satisfactory state 

 by Lord Kelvin, have been improved, especially by Mascart, Emer, 

 Elster and Geitel. One of our most crying wants at present is a 

 series of continuous observations by means of self-registering instru- 

 ments in places where the neighbourhood of a town, or other lccal 

 circumstances, do not interfere with the normal changes. The 

 Greenwich Observatory, to whom we look for help in such matters, 

 is placed in the difficulty that the daily variations there observed are 

 markedly different from those in the majority of places, and it is 

 probable that the nearness of London is fatal to any generally useful 

 series of observations of atmospheric electricity being conducted in 

 our national Observatory. 



[A. S.] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, March 1, 1895. 



Basil Woodd Smith, Esq., F.E.A.Q. F.S.A. Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



The Rev. Canon Ainger, M.A. LL.D. 



The Children s Books of a Hundred Years Ago. 



(No Abstract.) 



