108 REPORT—1845. 
Ou the Self-registering Meteorological Instruments employed in the 
Observatory at Senftenberg. By the BARon SENFTENBERG. 
[A communication read to the Mathematical and Physical Section, and ordered to be printed 
entire among the Reports. ] 
Ir any branch of natural philosophy can derive advantage from comparison 
of observations made at different localities, this is particularly the case with 
meteorology. Isolated observations made at one and the same spot may 
furnish valuable data; but the ultimate benefit that can by them accrue to 
science, however carefully they be made, is only obtained by their combina- 
tion with corresponding ones, made at more or less remote stations on our 
globe, thus establishing a first basis, succeeded by others, to form the links 
of that chain of arguments which may lead to the discovery of the primary 
causes of atmospheric changes. 
Itis by this process that we have already been enabled to ascertain that me- 
teorological phenomena are but the wheels of that great mechanism, whereof 
change of temperature is the motive power, whence the greater commotions 
extending over vast regions, as well as also minor local alterations, can be traced. 
Although the results of phenomena included in the first class are in general 
of higher importance than those in the second, these latter ones are not the less 
deserving of minute attention, for the purpose of arriving at a just perception 
of the process that takes place in the higher regions of the atmosphere, and are 
even indispensable for ascertaining the effect of local causes, from which each 
single observation must first be cleared before it can be made use of in com- 
parison with others made possibly under different influences. For this pur- 
pose observations made at two observatories at no great distance, but in other 
respects very differently situated, whereof the one is in a valley, the other on 
a mountain, or the one on an island surrounded by a great extent of water, 
the other on an extended level sandy plain, may lead to important results ; 
and such have indeed already been derived from comparative observations 
made at Geneva and at the Hospice on the St. Bernard. The success to be 
derived from such observations depends, however, mainly on their regularity 
and multiplicity at both stations at stated intervals; for phenomena arising 
from local causes are generally of short duration, and would escape the notice 
of an observer who makes but two or three observations in the course of 
a day, and of others he would have seen but the beginning or the end, 
which would furnish but imperfect data for comparison. It is on this account 
that self-registering instruments, regularly compared with the usual ones, 
afford great advantages, as no phenomenon, of however transient a duration, 
can occur without being registered by them. Such instruments have for 
nearly two years been in use at the Senftenberg Observatory, and the proofs 
of what can be accomplished by them are detailed in vol. v. of the Magnetic 
and Meteorological Observations at Prague, which contain, however, only 
those made with the barometrograph. More recently thermo- and hygrome- 
trographs have also been in active use there. Of course such instruments 
are complicated in their construction, and require practice in their manage- 
ment, whence the first series of observations are not so regular as those made 
with the usual ones, nor are the specimens now produced* intended to fur- 
nish the foundation for establishing new data or hypotheses; they are only 
intended as specimens to show what results might be obtained by these means 
under more favourable circumstances. A detailed description of these in- 
struments is contained in the third and fourth volume of the Magnetic and 
* Consisting of a selected series of tables, and diagrams of observations recorded contem- 
poraneously at Prague and Senftenberg. 
