A COLONIAL WEATHER SERVICE. 337 



and others have seen and approved, and is much discussed by the 

 well-informed ; but which I must say I feel skeptical about" 



What a contrast ! The steam navigation of that date and to- 

 day; from the first rude paddles of the river steamboat to the 

 triple screws of the transatlantic greyhounds! One naturally 

 asks, " Are we to-day on the verge of a still greater navigation, 

 that of the air ? " No modern Madison may yet write that some 



General W has seen and approved, but the signs of its advent 



are multiplying so rapidly that he would not say, " I feel skeptical 

 about it." If these two alert minds were again on earth, we can 

 fancy Jefferson, always so keenly alive to practical application of 

 knowledge, discussing the outlook as follows : 



The meteorologists are exultant. In that latest instrument of 

 the electrical engineer, the telautograph, they see the chance for 

 an advance equal to that made when the first synoptic weather 

 map was drawn. Simultaneity of observation can be improved 

 upon. Instead of sending the observations in cipher twice or 

 thrice per day, continuous records in installments can be sent. 

 But even more than this, the map can be drawn in many places at 

 once. The map is issued daily at a score of cities in the United 

 States. A map is also issued daily at Brussels, Paris, London, 

 Zurich, Hamburg, Rome, Munich, Vienna, Chemnitz, Madrid, Al- 

 giers, St. Petersburg, Simla, Brisbane, Sydney, Tokio, and Cape 

 Town. Now one step further. Shall there ever be one great cen- 

 tral weather office and one great daily weather map for the whole 

 world, drawn not in one but a hundred cities at the same moment ? 

 Does this seem visionary ? It is vastly less so than the actual 

 system in operation for the past twenty years would have seemed 

 to the two colonial gentlemen who more than a century ago read 

 their barometers and thermometers simultaneously and speculated 

 on the possibility of propulsion by steam. 



VIEWING exact delineation by trigonometrical measurement as the crowning 

 work of geography, Mr. Clements R. Markham pointed out, in a recent lecture, 

 that the exact mapping of the land surface of the glohe is still very incomplete, 

 while the delineation of the bed of the ocean has hardly begun. The greatest 

 unknown areas lie in the polar regions Even in Europe there remains scope for 

 detailed survey in many countries. In Africa the unexplored has been diminish- 

 ing very rapidly, but considerable areas are still virgin. Asia has much new 

 ground to break into. The valleys of Hadramant in Arabia are almost as little 

 known as the antarctic regions. Lhassa has been unvisited by Englishmen for 

 generations, and a vast region in northwestern Thibet is still a blank on our 

 maps. Nepaul is little known ; Kafiristan is absolutely secluded from the Euro- 

 pean. The maze of mountain ranges and river valleys east of the Himalayas has 

 yet to be unraveled, and the whole interior of Indo China is full of opportunities 

 for research. Korea is yet far from being fully known. The great Malay Archi- 

 pelago must receive more attention. 



