411 



XVIII. — Notes on the Meteorology of Ireland, deduced from the Observations 

 made in the Year 1851, under the Diirction of the Royal Irish Academy. By 

 theUev. Humphrey Lloyd, D.D., FE.S.; Hon.F.R.S.E.; V.RR.I.A.; 

 Correspondijhj Member of the Royal Society of Sciences at Gottingen ; Honorary 

 Member of the American Philosophical Society, of the Batavian Society of 

 Sciences, and of the Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle of Geneva, 

 ^c. ^*c. 



Read June 27 and December 12, 1853. 



JL HE science of meteorology is, perhaps more than any other, dependent upon 

 co-operation and upon method. Individual observers may investigate success- 

 fully certain detached meteorological problems, such as the laws of the diurnal 

 and annual changes of temperature, pressure, and humidity, at a given place ; 

 but little progress can be made in Climatology, or in the knowledge of the greater 

 movements of the atmosphere, and their relation to the non-periodic variations of 

 temperature and pressure, without the co-operation of many observers distri- 

 buted over a large area, and acting upon a common plan. 



For this task the voluntary association of individuals is insufficient. However 

 zealous such persons may be, it is not possible to bind them to that uniformity 

 of system without which little can be eifectively done. Observations taken at 

 different hours, or by different methods, can never be compared satisfactorily ; 

 and any comparison will involve an amount of labour in the processes of re- 

 duction which may render them impracticable. In addition to this, certain 

 rules of observation are imposed by the conditions of some of the great problems 

 of meteorology; and no co-operation in which these rules are deviated from can 

 contribute to their solution. 



VOL. XXII. 3 H 



