i8 7 



It is to this general direction of the mean path of de- 

 pressions that we owe our prevalent south-westerly winds. 

 If the track in our neighbourhood is from a northern point, 

 down the North Sea, we have our northerly winds and cold 

 weather. If it lies along the Channel or over France we 

 have our easterly winds, such as visit us in spring. 



Having thus given you some slight idea of the origin of 

 our storms, and of the courses by which they arrive on our 

 shores, I must no\v say something of the extent to which 

 we succeed in giving timely warning of their approach to 

 our fishermen and coasting seamen. 



It must always be remembered that in order to issue 

 perfectly correct storm warnings, we should require to 

 know the size, shape, position and motion, in direction and' 

 rate, of an advancing depression, and also whether it is 

 becoming deeper or the contrary ; and that there is not 

 one of these conditions of which we have a really sufficient 

 knowledge at present, while of most of them we can have 

 no knowledge at all till the storm has burst upon us. 



The problem, which is put before us daily, is similar to 

 one which astronomers would at once recognise as one 

 impossible of solution, and that is to determine the 

 elements of a comet's path from a single observation taken, 

 say, in a brief clear interval on a cloudy night. The first 

 glimpse we get of a storm must suffice for us to issue our 

 warnings. It is therefore evident that for our own exposed 

 western and north-western coasts we can but rarely issue 

 timely warning ; but, fortunately, these iron-bound shores 

 are not frequented by an amount of coasting craft at all 

 commensurate with that navigating the comparatively 

 calmer waters of the two Channels and the North Sea. 



The results of the warning to our own coasts have been 

 printed for many years, at first as a Parliamentary Paper, 



