portant part it has been and is playing in the development of meteorology 

 and that department of the science which deals with forecasting the weather. 

 I enclose also the recent reports of our Council, and in a few days shall send 

 you a parcel of the publications of the Society. We have in advanced pre- 



Earation for the press the hourly observations at the high and low level Ben 

 'evis observatories, which Will fill two large quarto volumes, along with 

 which will be incorporated a full discussion of the whole work done down 

 to date. It is expected this will go to press early in the autumn. The result 

 was that we carried every point along the whole line, and this the British 

 Association recognised by giving the Ben Nevis Commit tee a grant of £150 

 in aid of the work. But matters did not stop here. In November, 1887, Sir 

 George Stokes required, on becoming a member of Parliament, to re.-ign his 

 position as a member of the .Meteorological Council. To this vacant Beat on 

 the Council 1 was nominatod by the Council of the Royal Society, and 

 H.M, Treasury confirmed this nomination. 1 took my seat in .January, 

 1888, and have since given a monthly attendance at the meetings. In truth, 

 I write this letter in London before going to the meeting of the Meteoro- 

 logical Council today. It was the Meteo -ological Council that really estab- 

 lished the Ben Nevis Observatory, by offering in 1882, unsolicited, an annual 

 grant of £100, when observations were made regularly. This grant has been 

 regularly paid since. Further, it soon became clear that if the Ben Nevis 

 Observatory would perform its work properly it was necessary to esiabli-h 

 a first-class observatory at Fort William, at which hourly observations 

 could be made just as at the top. This matter was brought before the 

 Meteorological Council, who at once agreed to equip and maintain the 

 observatory at Fort William, making for it an annual grant of £260. Thus, 

 then, for the past seven years the directors of the Ben Nevis Observatories 

 have received £360 annually from the Meteorological Council (out of the 

 annual Parliamentary grant of £15,500) towards the maintenance of the two 

 observatories. For the value of the Ben Nevis work, let me refer you to 

 the three enclosed reports and to the successive annual reports to the British 

 Association from 1887 to 1896. As you know the great problem of weather 

 calls for a more accurate and more extended knowledge of the cyclone and 

 its attendant, the anticyclone, than we yet possess, The Ben Nevis 

 observations have already put us in the way of predicting whether the 

 coming cyclone is to be a deep one or a shallow— a piece of knowledge of 

 prime importance, and of so far foreseeing the future movements of the 

 anti-cyclone. Further, the hygrometric observations on the top of Ben 

 Nevis', taken in connection with the pressures and temperatures at both 

 observatories, indicate whether coming rains will be heavy and wide- 

 spread, or only merely light and sporadically distributed. Now here is the 

 part to be played by the high level observatories with their accompany- 

 ing low level ones in Tasmania and Australia. In the Northern Hemisphere 

 the irregular distribution of land and sea enormously complicates the 

 problem, and delays for years the successful prosecution of the weather 

 problem. But in* the Southern Hemisphere it is water all round the 

 Antarctic, with its wonderfully low barometric pressure. Hence you have 

 your cyclones in their simplest and least distracted forms; and no place on 

 the globe can be named at all approaching Tasmania for the establishing of 

 a double high and low level Meteorological Observatory, by which the 

 problem of the weather could be so successfully prosecuted. Our investi- 

 gations impressively show how essential it is in this inquiry to have 

 ordinary Meteorological Stations well distributed over the surrounding 

 country as necessary adjuncts.— Very sincerely yours, (Sg.) Alexander 



BUCHAN. 



THE HARE SYSTEM. 

 Discussion of the papers by Mr. R. M. Johnston and Professor Jtthro 

 Brown on the "Hare System" was postponed owing to the lateness of 

 the hour. 



THANKS. 

 The Chairman thanked those gentlemen who had contributed papers 

 or had taken part in the discussion, and the proceedings terminated. 



