ON MAGNETICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 21 
_ In the progress of my own researches, I have been particularly impressed 
with the importance of the observatory at Toronto. In an article published 
in the ‘ American Journal of Science,’ vol. xliii. p. 93, I attempted to deter- 
mine the annual change of dip in the United States; I found the materials 
for this investigation exceedingly meagre. It is of the utmost importance 
that there should be a few central stations where the mean annual motions of 
all the magnetic elements are accurately measured, as only in this way can 
observations made at scattered stations be reduced to a common epoch. 
‘The meteorological observations made at Toronto are perhaps no less im- 
portant than the magnetic. Having lately undertaken to investigate two storms 
which occurred in February 1842, my attention has been particularly called 
to this subject. I collected observations as far as practicable from every part 
of the United States and the adjoining British possessions. ‘The observations 
at Toronto were pre-eminent for their accuracy and completeness; they were 
made every two hours of the twenty-four, whereas at few other stations were 
there more than three or four daily observations. I attempted to analyse the 
phenomena on a somewhat nove: plan, which rendered the utmost accuracy 
desirable in all the observations of the barometer, thermometer, wind, &c. 
It is believed that a continuance of these observations promises important re- 
sults to the science of meteorology. Observers are now organized all over 
the United States, so that any storm which is embraced within our limits can 
be pretty fully investigated. But our great winter storms, whose features are 
the most strongly marked, and which are therefore best suited to inquiries of 
this kind, are of vast dimensions. On the morning of Feb. 3, 1842, rain was 
falling throughout nearly every portion of the United States, from an unknown 
distance in the Atlantic to far beyond the Mississippi, and from the Gulf of 
Mexico northward to an unknown distance beyond Lake Superior. The area 
upon which rain is ascertained to have been simultaneously falling was more 
than 1400 miles in a north and south direction. Now in order to exhibit a 
complete analysis of a storm, we need observations embracing its whole extent, 
otherwise we are obliged to supply deficiencies by conjecture. But almost all 
our great winter storms project over the British possessions on the north of us 
to an unknown extent; that is, it is seldom we have an opportunity to inves- 
tigate the phenomena of a great storm on its northern limit. The storms ex- 
tend northward beyond our present posts of observation. We have one station 
at Sault St. Mary, latitude 46° 29' N., but this is not sufficiently remote. We 
want a chain of meteorological posts extending indefinitely northward from 
the great lakes across the British possessions. There is nothing which would 
hold out a prospect of so rich a harvest to American meteorology as the 
establishment of such a chain of posts; this can only be effected through the 
agency of the British government. It would be desirable to have stations at 
intervals of 100 miles extending northward to the furthest outpost of civiliza- 
tion. Ten pounds will provide a station with instruments, and with a little 
pains-taking, competent men might probably be found to make the observa- 
tions gratuitously. The United States are admirably situated for a grand 
meteorological crusade. We have here a vast territory, covered by a popu- 
lation all speaking the same language. We have more than a hundred ob- 
_ servers who are now keeping registers, besides the observations at sixty mili- 
tary posts, mostly situated on the frontier. With a generous cooperation on 
_ the part of the British government in procuring registers from their extensive 
possessions north of the United States, our own observers would be inspired 
with new enthusiasm, and we might speedily hope for richer conquests than 
have been hitherto known in the domain of meteorology. Moreover, the pro- 
gress made in American meteorology is not exclusively of local value; a law 
