1865.J President's Address. 487 



desiderata in Meteorological Science, and had received in reply a letter 

 from the President and Council (dated February 22, 1855) containing 

 recommendations which were eventually adopted as the basis of the pro- 

 ceedings of the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade, the 

 Board was now desirous of being informed to what extent those objects 

 had been fulfilled by what had already been accomplished, and whether 

 the objects which had been so specified were still considered as important 

 for the interests of science and navigation as they were then considered. 



The Board of Trade were also desirous of obtaining an opinion from the 

 Royal Society regarding the Forecasts of Weather and the Storm Warn- 

 ings which had not been included in the original recommendations of the 

 Royal Society, but had originated with Admiral FitzRoy himself and had 

 formed a considerable part of the duties of the Meteorological Depart- 

 ment since 1859. 



To enable the President and Council to form a judgment on the ques- 

 tions referred to them, the Board of Trade supplied them with the following 

 documents : 



1. Admiral FitzRoy's Report to the Board of Trade, dated May 1862. 



2. A Report by Mr. Babington (Admiral FitzRoy's first assistant) on 

 the method adopted in the department with regard to forecasts and storm- 

 warnings. 



3. A return to the House of Commons, dated April 13, 1864, present- 

 ing a comparison of the probable force of the wind as indicated by the 

 signals in the year from April 1, 1863, to March 31, 1864, and its actual 

 state as reported in the three days following the exhibition of the signals. 



4. A manuscript return, furnished by Mr. Babington, having the same 

 object for the year from April 1, 1864, to March 31, 1865. 



The first of these documents contained the opinions of the Shipmasters 

 at several ports on our coasts, officially requested and given, in regard to 

 the practical value which they attached to the storm-warnings. Of these 

 replies, by far the greater number were decidedly favourable, three only 

 out of fifty-six being decidedly unfavourable. The date of the Report 

 containing them was May 1862 ; and the two subsequent Reports, dated 

 respectively in 1864 and 1865, exhibited in comparison a marked improve- 

 ment in successive years. Upon the authority of those statements, and 

 viewing the system of forecasting which Admiral FitzRoy had instituted 

 simply (as described by himself) as "an experimental process," based on 

 the knowledge conveyed by Telegraph of the actual state of the winds and 

 weather and other meteorological phenomena within a specified area, 

 and on a comparison of these with the telegrams of the preceding days, so 

 as to obtain inferences as to the probable changes in the succeeding days 

 taking into account also the evidence supplied of the improvement in the 

 forecasts of each year compared with those of the preceding year the Pre- 

 sident and Council were of opinion that it was not unreasonable to antici- 

 pate that the system, so far at least as regarded the storm-warnings, if 



