1869.] Meieorologij. " 125 



include it among our Chronicles. We shall commence by giving 

 a brief account of the work which has been completed, both at 

 home and abroad, during the past year, and of that which is now 

 in progress. 



Our own Meteorological Office, under the management of the 

 Committee of the Eoyal Society, is now fairly afloat, and its first 

 Annual Eeport was presented to Parliament in July last. The 

 Eeport consists of two parts, of which one gives an account of 

 the work of the office in London, under Mr. Scott, assisted by 

 Capt. H. Toynbee as Marine Superintendent ; while the other is 

 a full description, with plates, of the self-recording instruments" fur- 

 nished by the Committee to their newly-established observatories. 

 These latter are seven in number, viz. Aberdeen,, Armagh, Fal- 

 mouth, Glasgow, Stonyhurst, and Valencia, with the observatory 

 of the British Association at Kew, under the management of Dr. 

 Stewart, as the central and normal one. 



The price of this Eeport is so extremely low (Is.) that we must 

 refer our readers to its pages, and shall only notice it very briefly. 



The work of the office is divided into three heads, viz. Ocean 

 Meteorology, Telegraphic Weather Intelligence, and the Land 

 Meteorology of the British Islands. 



As to the first, the Committee have resolved to complete the 

 discussion of the materials left in an unfinished state by Admu-al 

 FitzEoy and Mr. Babington, and, as a commencement of new work, 

 to employ the energies of the office on the investigation of the 

 meteorological conditions of the district lying between the trade- 

 winds in the Atlantic Ocean. 



From this inquiry, which will necessarily be a tedious one, owing 

 to the immense arrear of observations to be worked up, it is hoped, 

 as General Sabine, the chairman of the committee, states in his last 

 presidential address to the Eoyal Society, to ascertain the "condi- 

 tions of atmospherical pressure, temperature, and vapour tension, 

 the direction and force of wind, the character of weather, and the 

 sea-surface temperature," for each month and for each square 

 degree over the area under discussion. Meanwhile, the co-operation 

 of several of our leading ocean steamship companies has been 

 obtained, and thereby a staff of observers of a very high class has 

 been secured. 



" Telegraphic Weather Intelligence " is the term applied by the 

 committee to the system adopted in lieu of the old storm warn- 

 ings. In June, 18G7, they proposed, in answer to the request of 

 the Board of Trade, to organize a system of telegraphy oi facts, 

 instead of prophecies or forecasts, and thereby to revert, for the 

 present, to what had been originally contemplated when '" storm 

 warnings" were first instituted. At the end of the year, when 

 the whole of the reporting stations had been visited, the arrange- 



