Ixxvi. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



METEOROLOGY. 



The rainfall of the British Isles during 1905 was distinctly 

 below the average, whilst taking England alone it amounted to 

 only 83 per cent. In an average year a fall of at least 20 inches 

 occurs everywhere in this country ; but in 1905 there were 7,500 

 square miles with less than this depth. The year 1905 has 

 justified the theory of a cycle of one wet year followed by two 

 dry ones. It remains to be seen whether 1906 will be a wet 

 one, but the rain in January especially was excessive ; since then 

 there has not been much. 



Meteorology is being extended into new parts of the world, 

 and has lately been cared for by the Japanese in Manchuria and 

 Corea by the establishment of numerous stations, those on the 

 coast issuing weather predictions and storm warnings by means 

 of flags. Notes of observations for eight years were found at 

 Seoul, from which it appears that the mean annual rainfall is 

 35-4 inches, of which more than two-thirds falls in the three 

 months of summer. One may form, perhaps, a better idea of 

 the position of Seoul if one realises that its latitude is almost 

 identical with that of San Francisco, Richmond (in Virginia), 

 the Azores, Granada, Syracuse, and Athens. 



A scheme has been put forward, under the auspices of the 

 British Association, to lay before the Government the desirability 

 of founding a Central Institution, which shall deal with the 

 meteorology of the whole British Empire, but the matter is still 

 under consideration. 



It has been found from data furnished by 21 years that, as a 

 rule, a dry autumn is followed by a good yield of wheat in the 

 next year, each extra inch of autumnal rain corresponding to an 

 average diminution of a bushel and a-quarter per acre in the 

 succeeding year. It is, perhaps, the sowing that is affected. 



At the recent International Navigation Congress at Milan one 

 of the questions discussed was " The influence which the 

 destruction of forests and the dessication of marshes has upon 

 the regime and discharge of rivers," and much evidence was 



