320 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION A. 



4. Each, principal station is connected with every other station by 

 a formula including corrections to the figures for the ellipsoids and error 

 of astronomical position due to the deflection of the vertical. 



5. Many equations are thus formed, and the above quantities 

 finally determined from a least-square solution. 



The final quantities depend on a mass of observations covering the 

 whole continent, and possess the weight of the united mass. Also the 

 exact geographical position of each principal station will be found with 

 an accuracy depending on the united strands of an entire network — not 

 on links of a chain. 



An important practical advantage in surveying the country 

 properly and in granting indisputable titles to land would be gained 

 by such work, as is pointed out in a quotation from a letter written by 

 Sir David Gill to Lord Grey, then Administrator of Rhodesia. " There 

 is one and only one remedy, and that is to connect all detached surveys 

 with a general system of triangulation ; and it will save the Govern- 

 ment and the inhabitants generally a vast amount of money to establish 

 this triangulation as quickly as possible, so that every farm survey, 

 when it is made, may at the same time be connected with, existing 

 well-established points of this rigorous system." 



This geodetic work, if done at all, must be done by united Aus- 

 tralia, and the good work hitherto done by the several Survey Depart- 

 ments of the States could be utilised. 



9. -OUR WINTER STORMS: WHENCE DO THEY COME? 



By W. ERNEST COOKE, M.A., F.R.A.S., Government Astronomer of 

 Western Australia. 



[Abstract.] 



In this paper the author brings forward the theory that " many, 

 probably most, and possibly all, of the disturbances which affect the 

 weather of Western Australia come from the Indian Ocean, and are 

 probably born in the tropics." He attacks the theory frequently urged 

 that the winter storms in Western Australia are due to the extension 

 of a tongue of low pressure from the Antarctic belt into the belt of high 

 pressure which usually exists between latitudes 25° and £0° S. This 

 theory has been found barren of results. The attempt to connect the 

 weather at either the Cape of Good Hope, Durban, or Mauritius with 

 that of Western Australia has been a fruitless one. As an illustration, 

 the remarkably severe series of the winter type of storm which visited 

 the Cape in January, 1901, failed altogether to make itself felt in Aus- 

 tralia. 



The clue for the new hypothesis was found in Dr. Meldrum's in- 

 vestigations into the cyclone tracks in the South Indian Ocean. From 

 December to March, Mauritius lies in the regular path of a series of 



