88 Life and Letters of Francis Qalton 



December 1861, and synchronously at 9 a.m., 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. for each day. 

 The s{)eciineti map sent with the chart is a considenible improvement on that 

 of the June circuhir. It is entitled : '' Synchroiious W'catJicr Chart of Emjktnd, 

 16/A January 9a.m. From Reports received by the Meteorological Society 

 of London, by the Board of Tnide and by the Tiinity House." AlMjut 50 

 stations were used. It is printed in three colours — the outline map in green, 

 the rain and cloudiness rectangles in brick re<l, and the wind symbols and 

 figures for barometer and thermometers in black. The circular itself gives 

 the most minute directions for observations, and even rules as to postal 

 dispatch. Finally also a blank schedule was sent on which the desired data 

 would be written in together with printed tables for reducing Centigrade 

 and Reaumur to Fahrenheit, and millimetres, Paris lines and Russian hnes 

 to English inches for the barometer. As a return for assistance Galton 

 promised a copy of his publication to con tribu tore. 



We reproduce here Cialton's map of 18GI in a single colour atid reduced 

 to the size of our page, and also one of the Metcorographica maps of 1863. 



The materials obtiiined by Gal ton's circular were somewhat disappointing, 

 yet Gralton proceeded to reduce them; his book or better atlas: Meteoro- 

 gi'aphica or Methods of Mapping the Weather; illustrated by upwards of 

 600 printed and lithographed diagrams referring to the Weather of a large 

 part of Enrope during the month of December 1861, was published by 

 Macmillan and printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode. In the text of this 

 work Galton insists not only on the need of tabulating observations, but on 

 representing the results in map form if general laws are to be drawn from 

 them. Maps are as essential to meteorology as to geography. I believe 

 Galton was the first or among the first to insist on this almost obvious truth. 

 But, alas ! — 



"A scientific study of the weather on a worthy scale seems to me an inipos.sibility at the present 

 time frooi want of accessible data. We need meteorographical representations of large areas, 

 as facts to reason upon, as urgently as experimental data are required by students of physical 

 philosophy." 



Galton draws attention to the fact that meteorologists are strangely 

 behindhand in the practice of combining the materials they possess. While 

 there are more than 300 skilled observers recording thrice daily with ex- 

 cellent instruments, the practice of combining their material is absent. "No 

 means exist of obtaining access to any considerable portion of the.se observa- 

 tions without great cost, delay and uncertainty'." For the most valuable 

 results in meteorology it is needful to study very large areas, or indeed the 

 world as a whole. No single nation can provide adequate data spread over a 

 wide enough area for valid conclusions. 



"The labour of a meteorologist who studies the changes of the weather is enormous before 

 he can get his materials in hand and arrive at the starting-point of his investigations. In the 



' Thirty or more years later the biographer found the sanic difliculty still in existence, when 

 correlating barometric heights across the Atlantic, pjistwanl from ilammerfest to Capo Town, 

 westward from Halifax to the Falklands; the required data existed in manuscript, but were 

 very costly to get copied. 



