426 



NATURE 



\March 15, 1S77 



the Astronomer-Royal has directed a meteorological ob- 

 servatory nearly forty years, and that he now says 

 meteorology is not a science (940), it is naught, and in 

 short that he has not been able to make anything out of 

 it, we can understand with what profound conviction he 

 replied, " I do not think that would be a safe thing." 



Sir William Thomson was also examined on this 

 question, and he thinks (1720) " the best way would be to 

 get some thoroughly able young man, well acquainted 

 with mathematics and of good judgment to take up the 

 whole subject of the harmonic analy sis^of the observations." 

 No doubt the harmonic analysis has some advantages as 

 representing mean values approximately by a series of 

 simple oscillations occupying the whole, a half, a third, 

 &c., of the time-period considered, which can be com- 

 pared when the conditions vary ; but it is only a first step, 

 one which may be misused if it is supposed that each 

 oscillation must represent the different periodic actions of 

 the same or of different causes. Kaemtz employed this 

 method forty years ago on every possible meteorological 

 variation, but we cannot say that any important result was 

 obtained by its means. 



What has to be done was indicated by the Astronomer- 

 Royal in answer to question 1,015) 5 "^^"^ (o^^^ man can- 

 not undertake the work in all its directions) must be 

 " seized upon " who have displayed " talent for things of 

 that sort," who by long study have become saturated 

 with the facts of the science and who have shown the 

 capacity to devise new methods and to employ them 

 with success. Such men, as Sir George Airy says, 

 in answer to another question (991), should be asked to 

 devote themselves to examining the observations already 

 made, and to " turning them over in all conceivable 

 ways." Such men, he says (1,015), are to be taken " on 

 opportunity," that is to say, if they present themselves we 

 should lay hold of them. But this is true' for every occu- 

 pation demanding special qualifications. It would seem 

 sometimes as if the difficulties were exaggerated, and 

 sometimes under estimated. If we had a Newton among 

 us, he could do little till the meteorological apple has 

 fallen, and the tree will require, we think, a good deal of 

 shaking first. That the specialty of turning a thing " in 

 all conceivable ways " is not very common, may be 

 deduced from the evidence before the committee ; but 

 many look on meteorological investigation as a kind of 

 lottery, where just because so many blanks have been 

 drawn, every one has a better chance of getting a prize 7 

 and some very clever people think that the affair may be 

 done by a machine. 



There is also the very urgent reason for " turning over " 

 the observations made at the seven observatories, that it 

 is not possible to determine their value, nor how far they 

 can be usefully employed for strict scientific investigation 

 till this is done. Mr. Buchan, one of the few working 

 meteorologists examined, says (1,530), that the eye-obser- 

 vations " secure an exactness and accuracy which photo- 

 graphic self-recording instruments do not possess." This, 

 if true, is a very serious matter, and we shall have to 

 return to it at another time. 



The subject of observatories, the most important in 

 connection with the progress of meteorology as a science, 

 was also brought forward by the Committee. The ques- 

 tion was put to the Astronomer- Royal (1,045): " Might I 



ask what led your office to undertake the meteorological 

 part of its work in 1840 ?— Because nobody else did." 

 This answer must evidently be taken with reference to 

 certain conditions. Had the Government been encou- 

 raged at the time to support a magnetical and meteoro- 

 logical observatory, paying a competent man to direct it, 

 we can scarcely doubt that they would have done so. 

 Sir G. Airy's reply means, we believe, that nobody was 

 ready to undertake the duty for nothing'^but himself. We 

 think it is much to be regretted that the director of the 

 National Observatory, overcharged as he is with the 

 duties connected directly with his office, should have been 

 allowed to undertake scientific work, demanding so much 

 care and devotion of time, which was really not at all in 

 his specialty, however excellent the motives might have 

 been which induced him to do so. 



This is now well understood in other countries. In 

 Paris there is now a magnetical and meteorological 

 observatory with a distinct head ; another observatory 

 devoted to solar physics is rising ; and similar arrange- 

 ments have been made in Germany and Austria. It is 

 the very essence of "penny wise, pound foolish" which 

 can seek from one man to direct with success three or 

 four observatories at the same time, when each of them 

 will task the energies of the cleverest men in the different 

 departments to make something good out of them. 



The question is further put (1,050) — "In the former 

 part of your evidence you spoke as if meteorology at pre- 

 sent was scarcely in a scientific position at all, as too 

 uncertain to be called a science at present ? — It is not in 

 a scientific condition at all, I think." 



"1,051. — I want to connect that answer with the fact 

 that in 1840 you undertook in this Government Depart- 

 ment these particular inquiries ; at that time you must 

 have formed some idea that these studies were worth 

 pursuing for national objects, and in a national establish- 

 ment ?— Observing the movement that was going on in 

 other places, it was very desirable that Greenwich should 

 be one of the stations in concert with them, but still I 

 was so diffident about the [^success of it, that after three 

 years, I think at the next meeting of the committee, or I 

 forget by what name it was called, where the representa- 

 tives of different nations attended, I earnestly urged them 

 to cease. I did not see that there was any use in going 

 on. I recommended them to do something like what 

 I have spoken of to-day, to stop where they were, and 

 try what they could extract from those observations 

 that they had collected, before they proceeded further 

 with them." 



It has always been a tendency with the heads 01 

 great national scientific institutions to annex other scien- 

 tific work than that for which the institutions were 

 founded. We remember that the late Prof. Nichol de- 

 scribed at the meeting of the British Association at 

 Glasgow in 1840, the numerous works he was about to 

 carry forward in different departments of astronomy ; to 

 all he added a magnetical and also a meteorological ob- 

 servatory, with special reference to important meteoro- 

 logical problems, which he proposed to take up. Photo- 

 hehography and spectroscopy were not then in existence, 

 or doubtless they also would have been included. The 

 Astronomer-Royal then said (we do not remember the 

 exact words, but they were to this effect) : " Let me, as 



