3oS 



NA TURE 



[January 24, 1895 



Nelson, Christchurch, and Danedic, each being supplied 

 with a set of slandard instrumenis. The service appears 

 to have been placed, in the fir»t instance, under the 

 supervision of Dr. Knight, the Aulitor-Geieral, bat in 1867 it 

 was tranifcrreJ to Dr. (now Sir James) Hector, unier whose 

 skilful minageoaent great improvemenis were intro iuced. The 

 principal stations are supplied with mercurial Fortin barometers, 

 dry and wet bulb and self-registering maximum and minimum 

 thermometers, solar and terrestrial radiation thermometers, 

 Robinson's anemometers, and rain gauges. The height of 

 every barometer abjve sea-level has been ascertained, and 

 every reading, as in the other colonies, is reduced to sea-level 

 and 32° F. 



At present there are eight stations, viz. Te Aroha, Taranaki, 

 Russell, The Bluff, Wellington, Lincoln, Hokitiki and Dunedin, 

 equipped as above, except Te Aroha, which has an aneroid ; 

 and seventy-nine rain stations. 



To facilitate the transmission of daily weather reports. Sir 

 James Hector has prepared a series of isobaric maps, which 

 fairly represents all the different types of weather. These 

 maps are numbered in consecutive order, and stereotyped 

 copies are supplied to each station, so that all that is necessary 

 is for the head office to telegraph to each office the number of 

 the map to be posted up for the information of the public. In 

 the same manner typical maps of the pressure in Australia have 

 been prepared, with the assistance of Mr. Russell, of Sydney. 

 The reports from a few selected stations, a brief description of 

 the weather, and the number of the map, are daily exchanged 

 between Wellington and Sydney (representing Australia) ; the 

 New Zealand reports being transmitted by telegraph to the 

 head office in each of the other colonies. 



Spread throughout the colonies we have 357 meteorological 

 stations, more or less completely equipped, and 2575 rain 

 gauges. 



It will be seen that, excepting the magnetic and meteoro- 

 logical observatory at Hobart, established in 1841, which was 

 an Imperial institution, systematic observations under the 

 auspices of the Colonial Governments date, speaking approxi- 

 mately, from about 1858, a date which cbsely c lincides with 

 that given by Prof. \Valdo(l86o) as marking a definite epoch in 

 the development of the modern science of meteorology. The 

 investigation of the law of storms by Uuys Ballot, Dove, and 

 others, and the researches of Ferrel, then just commenced, on 

 the theory of atmospheric motions, cleared the way to further 

 advances ; and, later on, the utilisation of the electric tele- 

 graph, which is to the meteorologist what the telescope is to 

 the astrommer, in extending his field of view over large areas 

 of the earth's surface, enabled the observer to mark and svatch 

 the birthplace of storm<, track their course and rate of trans- 

 lation. The same means informed him of the general distrihu- 

 tion of pressure, and, knowing the laws governing the circu- 

 lation of air currents round regions of high and low baro- 

 meters, he soon felt himself justified in issuing warnings of 

 coming gales and the probable stale of the weather some hours 

 in advance. He w,is no longer confined to his own particular 

 locality, laboriously compiling stati^tics and studying local 

 prognostic. : he could look far around him, see storms a thou- 

 sand or more iniici distant, and tell people with a considerable 

 amount of confidence when they might be expected and what 

 would be their force. This is the great function of modern 

 meteorology. Hut, like everything else, it look time. It 

 required money from the Slate, which was not always readily 

 forthcoming ; it required, moreover, a complete and extensive 

 organivaiion rif ' '■ ■ ■ .;;, all working on the same lines 

 and with the view. It had also lo win the 



confidence of .1 . , — , _, which still placed confidence 



in quack weather prophets, who could tell them what the 

 weather would be all the year through, according lo the phases 

 of the moon. Cunfidrnce, we arc told, is a plant of slow 

 growth. So it i<, and so it should be if progress is to be made 

 on a loaiicl, solid, lasting basis. 



I 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 JNTELLIGENCE. 



I —The Univcr«ity Lecturer in Geography (Mr. 



V'ui>; will during the present term give a course of 



lectures un the History of Geographical Discovery, in ihc 

 Lecture-theatre of the Chemical Laboratory on Thursdays at 

 noon, beginnin-.; on Thursday, January 24. 



NO. 13 17, VOL. 51] 



The Council of the Royal Geographical Society offer in the 

 present academical year a Sludenlship of ;^ioo, to be used in 

 the geographical invesiigaiion (physical or historical) of some 

 district approved by the Council. Candidates must be mem- 

 bers of the Universiiy of not more than eight years' standing 

 from matriculation, who have attended ihe courses of lectures 

 given in Cambridge by the University Lecturer in Cieoj;raphy. 

 Applications should be addressed to the Vice-Chancellor not 

 later than the last day of the full Lent term, March 15, 1895. 



Prof. Ewing, F.R.S., has been appoinied Chairman of the 

 Examiners for the Mechanical Sciences Tripos. 



The Gamble Prize for 1S94 has been awarded to Miss Isabel 

 Maddison, for her essay on " Singular sjlutions of differential 

 equations of the first order." 



The first annual meeting of the .Association of Technical 

 Institutions was held on Friday last. In the course of an 

 address, Mr. W. .Mather, M.P., the President for the ensuing 

 year, remarked that, so far as the pecuniary facili>ies conferred 

 by the Technical Instruction Acts were concerned, local 

 authoriiies had the means of annually bestowing on technical 

 education in England and Wales (i) from grants under the 

 Local Taxation .\cl, about ;f 780,000 ; (2) from a penny rale 

 levied on the total rateable value of the whole country, 

 ;^6fi4,5oo ; (3) grants from the Department of Science and 

 Art, about /'355, 000. The total amount available is this, in 

 lound nuinuers, /^l, 800,000 per annum. To this must be 

 added the voluntary aid given 10 technical schools and 

 institutions. -Vmong the resolutions adopted by the meeting 

 was one for the appointment of a sub-c immittee to consider 

 the best methods by which reform could be effecied in the 

 present system of examination in prac ical chemi-iry adopted 

 by the Dcpar ment of Science and .\rt, and to confer with other 

 commiUees appointed with a similar object ; and another to the 

 effect that the result of examinations should not form the sole 

 basis for the calculation of the gram in aid of science classes, 

 but that there should also be a variable grant dependent on the 

 report of the inspector on the equipmeut .and arrangement for 

 efficient insiiuctioo. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



LO.NDON. 

 Mathematical Society, January 10. —Major Macmahon, 

 R.A., F.R.S., President, in the chair. The Chairman gave a 

 short obituary sketch of Mr. .\. Cowper Ranyard, in the 

 course of which he |>oiniedout that that gentleman had only been 

 a pro tan. secretary with the late Mr. G. C. De Morgan. — 

 The secretaries elected at the first meeting of the .Society, 

 January 16, 1865, were Messrs. U. Cozens Hardy and H. M. 

 Bompas. Mr. Hardy resigned at the second meeting (February 

 20), and Mr. \V. Jardine was elected in his room. — Ihe follow- 

 ing communications were made : — Note on the expansion of 

 functions, by Mr. Edward T. Dixon. The author had long 

 thought that so fundamental a theorem as the expansion of a 

 lunciion in Taylor's series ought to be demonstrable from firsi 

 principles in a simple maner which should be apidicable to 

 complex as well as to real q laniilies. The main feature in the 

 proof he proposed was that ihe series was regarded not as the 

 expansion in terms of powers of the inclement of ihe variable, 

 but raiher as the expansion in terms of the values of the suc- 

 cessive differential coefficients of the function for the given 

 initial value of ihe variable. If two functions were equal for a 

 given value of the variable, they would remain equal while Ihe 

 variable varied in any specified manner, so long as their rates 

 of change remained equal and finite. The two sides of the 

 equation known as Taylor's thcoiem v/ere such functions ; and 

 Ihe author explained hokv the limita'ions to the application of 

 Taylor's theorem followed directly from his way of regarding 

 the expansion. He also showed how the same line of argu- 

 ment applied to the ca.se of complex variables, and how 

 in thai case also the limitations could easily be deduced. — 

 Elecltical dislribulion on Iwo inlersccling spheres, by Mr. 

 H. M. Macdonald. In Maxwell's " Llectriciiy and Mag- 

 netism, " vol. i. §J 165, 166, the problem of the distribution of 

 clettricily induced by an clectiifinl point placed between them 

 on two planes culling at an angle which is a submuliiple of 

 iwo right arglcs, and the inveise problem of Ihe comluclor 

 lotnictl by two spherical surlaces culling at such an angle (the 

 angle rcfciiing to Ihe dielectric) is solved by the method of 



