330 



AT A rURE 



\August I, 1889 



ing mornings, at 8 a.m., for gratuitous distribution. Lists of 

 members present will be issued as soon as possible after the 

 •commencement of the meeting, and will be placed in the same 

 room for distribution. The published volumes of the British 

 Association c^n be ordered in thi^ room, for Members and 

 Associates only, at the reduced prices appointed by the Council. 

 The tickets will contain a map of Newca=;tle-uponTyne, and 

 particulars as to the rooms appointed fcr Sectional and other 

 meetings. For the convenience of Members and Associates, a 

 branch post office (which will be available also for communica- 

 tion between Members attending the meeting) will be opened in 

 the Reception Room. Members and Associates may obtain 

 information about local arrangements, and facil ties afforded by 

 the railway companies, on application to the Local Secretaries, 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 



THE GOVERNMENTS TECHNICAL 

 INSTRUCTION BILL. 



'T^HE following is the Bill to Facilitate the Provision of 

 -*• Technical Instruction, introduced into the House of 

 -Commons by Sir W. Hart Dyke, and read a hrst time, on 

 July 24 :— 



Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and 

 with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, 

 and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the 

 authority of the same, as follows : 



L (i) A local authority may from time to time out of the 

 local rate supply or aid the supply of technical or manual 

 instruction, to such extent and on such terms as the authority 

 think expedient, subject to the following restrictions, namely : — 



{a) The local authority shall not out of the local rate supply 

 or aid the supply of technical or manual instruction at an 

 ■elementary school to scholars receiving instruction in the ob- 

 ligatory or standard su>^jects prescribed by the minutes of the 

 Education Department for the time being in force ; and 



(3) The amount of the rate to be raised in any one year by a 

 local authority for the purposes of this Act shall not exceed the 

 sum o{ one fenny in the pound. 



(2) A local authority may, for the purposes of this Act, ap- 

 |)oint a Committee consisting either wholly or partly of members 

 of the local authority, and may delega'.e to any such Committee 

 any powers exercisable by the authority under this Act, except 

 the power of raising a rate or borrowing money. 



IL (i) The managers of any school or other institution giving 

 technical instruction in the district of a local authority may make 

 an arrangement with the authority for transferring their school 

 or institution to it, and the local authority may assent to any 

 such arrangement. 



(2) The iirovisions of Section 23 of the Elementary Educa- 

 tion Act, 1870, with respect to arrangements for the transfers of 

 -schools, shall apply in the case of arrangements for the tranfers 

 of schools or institutions in pursuance of this section, with this 

 modificat'on, that for the purposes of transfers to a local 

 authority references to the School Board shall be construed as 

 references to the local authority, and references to the Educa- 

 tion Department as references to the Department of Science 

 and Art. 



HI. The conditions on which Parliamentary grants may be 

 Tnade in aid of technical or manual instruction shall be those 

 ■contained in the minutes of the Department of Science and Art 

 in force for the time being. 



IV. (i) For the purposes of this Act the expression "local 

 authority " shall mean the Council of any county or borough, 

 and any urban or rural sanitary authority within the meaning of 

 the Public Health Acts. 



(2) The local rate for the purposes of this Act shall be — 



(a) In the case of a County Council, the county fund ; 



(b) In the case of a Borough Council, the borough fund or 

 borough rate ; 



{c) In the case of an urban sanitary authority not being a 

 Borough Council, the district fund and general district rate, or 

 other fund or rate applicable to the general purposes of the 

 Public Health Acts ; 



{(i) In the case of a rural sanitary authority, the rate or rates 

 ■out of which special expenses incurred in respect gf any con- 

 tributory place or places are payable under the Public Health 

 Act, 1875. 



(3) A County Council may charge any expenses incurred by 

 <hem under this Act on any part of their county. 



(4) A rural sanitary authority may charge any expenses in- 

 curred by them under this Act on any contributory place or 

 places within their district. 



(5) A local authority may borrow for the purposes of this 

 Act— 



{a) In the case of a County Council, in rr.anner provided by 

 the Local Government Act, 1888 ; 



{b) In the case of a Borough Council, as if the purposes of 

 this Act were purposes for which they are authorized by Section 

 ic6 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, to borrow ; 



(f) In the case of an urban sanitary authority not being a 

 Borough Council, or of a rural sanitary authority, as if the pur- 

 poses of this Act were purposes for which they are authorized 

 to borrow under the Public Health Acts. 



V. In this Act — 



The expression "technical instruction " shall mean instruction 

 in the principles of science and ait applicable to industries, and 

 in the application of special branches ■ f science and art to spe- 

 cific industries or employments. It shall not include teaching 

 the practice of any trade or industry or employment, but, save 

 as aforesaid, shall include instruction in the branches of science 

 and art with respect to which grants are for the time being made 

 by the Department of Science and Art, and any other form of 

 instruction v\ hioh may for the time being be sanctioned by that 

 Department by a minute laid before Parliament and made on the 

 representation of a local authority that such a form of instruction 

 is required by the circumstances of its district. 



The expression "manual instruction" shall mean instruction 

 in the u e of tools, and modelling in clay, wood, or other 

 material. 



VI. This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland. 



VII. This Act may be cited as the Technical Instruction Act, 

 i88g. 



PROFESSOR LOO MIS ON RAINFALL} 



'T^HE subject of this chapter is the mean annual rainfall in all 

 the different countries of the globe, with a discussion of 

 the conditions favourable and unfavourable to rainfall, and an 

 examination of individual cases of rainfall in the United States, 

 Europe, and over the Atlantic Ocean, and the areas of low 

 barometric pressure without rain. 



To begin with, Prof. Loomis has compiled a list of 1427 

 stations, and arranged them in order of latitude. With each 

 station is found its altitude, its mean annual rainfall, and the 

 number of years of observation. This list would have been 

 considerably larger if all the stations where the amount of rain- 

 fall is measured were quoted, for in England alone there are 

 2200 stations where rainfall is regularly measured, in the United 

 States 2000, whilst the total number of stations in France is 

 1500. The plan adopted by the author has been to select a 

 few stations from those countries which rejoiced in a plentiiude 

 of rain-gauges, but in regions where few stations exist all the 

 measurements were used. 



Following upon each enunciation of causes which affect rain- 

 fall is found a tabular statement demonstrating its truth. 



The conditions favourable to rainfall, according to Prof. 

 Loomis, begin with the fact that the north-east and south-east 

 trade winds, on approaching the belt of calms near the equator, 

 and being gradually deflected upward, are cooled by expansion, 

 so that the aqueous vapour is condensed, and the belt of calms 

 becomes a belt of rain. This equatorial rain-belt, of course, 

 moves with the sun in declination, and some observations in- 

 cluded in table Ixxxiv. strikingly exemplify this movement by 

 giving for twelve months respectively the number of rains in 

 a hundred observations between b.titudes 20° N. and 10" S., the 

 maximum of falls moving with the sun. 



A second cause for abundant rainfall is the influence of moun- 

 tains, for when a strong wind meets a mountain it is forced up 

 the side of the mountain, and elevated into a colder region, the 

 result bein'4 that its vapour is precipitated by the cold of eleva- 

 tion. Table Ixxxv. gives a comparison of the rainfall in two 

 regions situated within twenty-five miles of each other, but of 

 different altitudes, and from it the conclusion is deduced that 

 the rainfall on a mountain from 4000 to 10,000 feet high is 

 more than double that at neighbouring places near the sea- 



^ " Contributicns to Meteoroligy," Chapter III., by Ellas Loomis, LL.TD^ 

 Profefsor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in Yale University, 

 I Revised Edition. (New Haven, Connecticut, U S., 1889.) 



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