1865.] on the Meteorological Department. 317 



" Question 8. A proper reply to this question would require informa- 

 tion and involve considerations which would occasion an incon- 

 venient delay in the transmission of this letter. 



" Question 9. The suggestions of the President and Council in regard 

 to the mode in which it appears to them that the important subject 

 of ' Meteorology Proper,' or the ' Land Meteorology of the British 

 Islands,' might be dealt with economically, and at the same time 

 effectively, have been fully stated in the body of this letter. 

 " I have the honour to be, Sir, 

 " Your obedient Servant, 



" EDWARD SABINE, 

 " President of the Royal Society" 



Extracts from a Letter to the President from Professor Dove, of Berlin, 

 dated June \2th, 1865. 



" Berlin. 



" My views respecting the way in which meteorological communications 

 may be made available for practical use in storm-warnings are in general 

 accordance with the methods followed in England ; yet I acknowledge that I 

 do not trust myself to announce daily probabilities, at least with the but 

 limited communications which reach me telegraphically. My investi- 

 gations in regard to storms have hitherto had relation to great atmospheric 

 disturbances in autumn and winter, hardly at all to the storms of summer, 

 in which the derangements of atmospheric equilibrium are much more 

 local, and therefore the limits of the region overspread by the storm much 

 narrower. This is particularly true of the storms of the Baltic. There, 

 relative barometric minima occur, which seem to be cut off as it were towards 

 the south. Probably the upper equatorial current first comes down in 

 those high latitudes, breaking into the locally warm moist air, and occa- 

 sioning a north-west wind at the south end of the Scandinavian mountain 

 ranges, over the Kattegat and the lowlands of Denmark. Yet it is pro- 

 bable that these disturbances are less local than they may seem to the in- 

 habitants of Western Europe, for they extend into the interior of Russia, 

 and may become more intelligible when viewed in combination with tele- 

 graphically communicated data from Russia. All this must be studied if 

 too hasty conclusions are to be avoided. 



" We have introduced the English warning- signals into our Baltic ports. 

 We leave to authorities at the ports who are conversant with the subject 

 a discretionary power of showing warnings, in so far as they may be able to 

 form a judgment from the telegrams which we send them of our observations 

 here, and the general appearance of the sky, &c., viewed in connexion 

 with the whole local character of the weather ; but it is imperative on 

 them to hoist a signal when an actual storm-warning is telegraphed from 

 Berlin. I wished to introduce the system gradually. I consulted with 

 Kupffer, who had similar views. His death is a new misfortune, following 

 so shortly the loss of Admiral FitzRoy, to whom I owed great thanks for 



2 A2 



