638 



and will probably lead us to a much more perfect knowledge of these 

 causes than we now possess." 



The instructions contained in the Royal Society's Report for the 

 adjustments and manipulation of the several instruments provided for 

 these purposes were clear, simple and precise. In looking back upon 

 them after the completion of the services for which they were 

 designed, it is impossible to speak of the instructions otherwise than 

 with unqualified praise. But the guidance afforded by the instruc- 

 tions terminated with the completion of the observations. To have 

 attempted to prescribe the methods by which conclusions, the nature 

 of which could not be anticipated, should be sought out from observa- 

 tions not yet made, would have been obviously premature. Yet 

 without some discussion of the results, the mere publication of un- 

 reduced observations is comparatively valueless. It has been well 

 remarked by an eminent authority, whose opinions expressed in the 

 Royal Society's Report have been frequently referred to in the course 

 of this paper, that " a man may as well keep a register of his dreams, 

 as of the weather, or any other set of daily phenomena, if the spirit 

 of grouping, combining, and eliciting results be absent." It was 

 indispensable that the attempt should be made to gather in at least 

 the first fruits of an undertaking on which a considerable amount of 

 public money and of individual labour had been expended ; and the 

 duty of making the attempt might naturally be considered to rest on 

 the person who had been entrusted with the superintendence of the 

 Government Observatories. The methods and processes adopted for 

 reducing, combining, eliminating, and otherwise eliciting results were 

 necessarily of a novel description ; they were in fact an endeavour to 

 find a way by untrodden paths to simple and general phenomenal 

 laws where no definite knowledge of the origin or mode of causation 

 of the phenomena previously existed. Happily it is not necessary 

 to trespass on the time or attention of the Society by a description 

 of the methods and processes which have been employed to elucidate 

 some of the leading features of the magnetic storms, as these are fully 

 described in the discussions prefixed to the ten large volumes in which 

 the observations at the Colonial Observatories have been printed. It 

 will be only necessary to advert, and that very briefly, to some of the 

 principal conclusions which may be supposed to throw most light on 

 the theory of these phenomena. 



The results of the extension of the term-day comparisons to the 



