Science |3ragres$. 



JVew Series. No. i. October, 1896. Vol. I. 



SCIENTIFIC WEATHER FORECASTING. 



THERE is hardly any kind of writing which so abounds 

 with pitfalls as the history of scientific progress. 

 Questions of priority arise in every few lines, and a writer 

 who is worth his salt knows two things — (i.) that he had 

 better not write at all unless he can improve greatly upon 

 what has been written before, and (ii.) that the next man 

 who attempts it ought to do better still. 



Weather forecasting, after a fashion, has gone on for 

 thousands of years, and some of the rules of the Hebrews, 

 Greeks and Romans, preserved in the Bible and in the 

 writings of Aristode, Theophrastus and Aratus, may justly 

 be called scientific, as they represent definite conclusions 

 drawn from physical facts. The special object of the pre- 

 sent article is historical, to show how Scientific Weather 

 Forecasting became possible, rather than how it is at pre- 

 sent being done in nearly every country in the world. 



But, by those who have not previously considered the 

 subject, the historical points will be more readily appreciated 

 if a very brief and elementary sketch be given of the method 

 now adopted. 



Each country has a central office and a considerable 

 number of small observatories — stations they are generally 

 called — scattered widely apart over its territories, preferably 

 on the sea-coast, but always at places whence there is 

 electro-telegraphic communication with the central office. 

 At each of these stations there is at least one good baro- 



