37 
Supplementary Report on Meteorology. By Jamzs D. Forses, 
Esq., F.R.S. Sec. R.S. Ep., Professor of Natural Philo- 
sophy in the University of Edinburgh. 
[A Summary of the Contents will be found at the end of this Report. ] 
1. Tne present Report on Meteorology is intended to be sup- 
plementary to a former one on the same subject, drawn up by 
me eight years ago, and printed in the Second Report of the 
British Association. 
2. It was in the contemplation of those persons who assisted 
in organizing the Association at York in 1831, that the reports 
on the progress of science should be essentially progressive,— 
that the same authors, or others, should be engaged to continue 
from time to time their sketch of the ever-varying point of 
- view which each science presents, not merely with the intention 
of registering something like a compendious history of facts, 
but likewise of philosophizing in some degree upon the new 
character which, during the elapsed period, science may have 
assumed,—of indicating the success, or not less instructive 
failures which may have occurred in attempts to carry forward 
our knowledge in the lines of direction indicated in previous 
reports, as the most hopeful or important, and of calling atten- 
tion to new fields of discovery, new instruments of research, or 
the collateral suggestions which may often be derived from the 
progress of the affiliated sciences. 
3. My aim in the following report will be—/frst, to sketch 
the broad features of the science as it stands; secondly, to give 
the bibliography of the subject within a definite period of years ; 
and thirdly, to point out the more conspicuous deficiencies of 
our knowledge, and the kind of observation, experiment or rea- 
soning by which these blanks may be supplied. In fulfilling 
this last and responsible duty, the reporter does not lay himself 
open to the charge which has sometimes been very needlessly 
preferred, that he is only attempting to stimulate where there 
is more than energy enough,—that the tide of science is in such 
full flow, that any external or partial impulse does no more 
than propagate a local disturbance; that the grand prime- 
movers,—the wants, ambition, and restless curiosity of men,— 
would act just as strongly, without assistance or direction, in 
