470 



NA TURE 



[September 17, 1903 



the universities with a central office would enable this 

 country, with its colonies and dependencies, to build up a 

 system of meteorological investigation worthy of its un- 

 exampled opportunities. But the co-operation, must be real 

 and not one-sided. Meteorology, which depends upon the 

 combination of observations of various kinds from all parts 

 of the world, must be international, and a Government 

 department in some form or other is indispensable. No 

 university could do the work. But whatever form Govern- 

 ment service takes it will always have some of those 

 characteristics which, from the point of view of research, 

 may be called bondage. On the other hand, research, to 

 be productive, must be free with an academic freedom, free 

 to succeed or fail, free to be remunerative or unremunerative, 

 without regard to Government audits or House of Commons 

 control. Research looks to the judgment of posterity with 

 a faith which is not unworthy of the Churches, and which 

 is not among those excellent moral qualities embodied in 

 the Controller and Auditor General. Dtc academische 

 Freiheit is not the characteristic of a Government depart- 

 ment. The opportunity which gave to the world the 

 " Philosophiae Naturalis Principia " was not due to the 

 State subvention of the Deputy Mastership of the Mint, 

 but to the modest provision of a professorship by one Henry 

 Lucas, of whose pious benefaction Cambridge has made 

 such wonderful use in her Lucasian professors. 



The future of Meteorology lies, I believe, in the associ- 

 ation of the universities with a central department. I 

 could imagine that Liverpool or Glasgow might take a 

 special interest in the meteorology of the sea ; they might 

 even find the means of maintaining a floating observatory ; 

 and when I say that we know practically nothing of the 

 distribution of rainfall over the sA, and we want to know 

 everything about the air above the sea, you will agree 

 with me that there is room for such an enterprise. Edin- 

 burgh might, from its association with Ben Nevis, be 

 desirous of developing the investigation of the upper air 

 over our land ; in Cambridge might be found the author 

 of a book, on the principles of atmospheric physics, worthy 

 of its Latin predecessor ; and for London I can assign no 

 limited possibilities. 



If such an association were established I should not need 

 to reply to Prof. Schuster's suggestion for the suppression 

 of observations. The real requirement of the time is not 

 fewer observations, but more men and women to interpret 

 them. I have no doubt that the first expression of such 

 an organisation would be one of recognition and acknow- 

 ledgment of the patience, the care, the skill, and the public 

 spirit — all of them sound scientific characteristics — which 

 furnish at their own expense those multitudes of observ- 

 ations. The accumulated readings appal by their volume, 

 it is true, but they are, and must be, the foundation upon 

 which the scientific structure will be built. 



So far as this country is concerned when one puts what 

 is in comparison with what might be it must be acknow- 

 ledged that the tendency to pessimistic complaisance is very 

 strong. Yet I ought not to allow the reflections to which 

 my predecessor's Address naturally gave rise to be too de- 

 pressing. I should remember that, as Dr. Hellmann said 

 some years ago. Meteorology has no frontiers, and each 

 step in its progress is the result of efforts of various kinds 

 in many countries, our own not excluded. In the presence 

 of our guests to-day, some of whom know by practical ex- 

 perience the advantages of the association of academic 

 liberty with official routine, remembering the recent con- 

 spicuous successes in the investigation of the upper air 

 in France, Germany, Austria, and the United States, and 

 the prospect of fruitful co-operation of meteorology with 

 other branches of cosmical physics, I may well recall the 

 words of Clough : — 



Say not, the struggle nought availeth . _. . 

 And as things have been, things remain. 



If hopes were_ dupes, fears may be liars ; 



It mny be, in yon smoke concealed 

 Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 



And, but for you, possess the field. 



For while the tired waves, vainly breaking. 



Seem here no painful inch to gain. 

 Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 



Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 



NO. 1768, VOL. 68] 



And not by eastern windows only, 



When daylight comes, comes in the light ; 



In front, the sun climbs stow, how slowly, 

 But westward, look, the land is bright. 



Oflicial meteorologists are not wanting in scientific 

 ambitions and achievements. It is true that Prof. Hann, 

 whose presence here would have been so cordially welcomed, 

 left the public service of Austria to continue his services 

 to the world of science by the compilation of his great 

 handbook, and Snellen is leaving the direction of the 

 weather service of the Netherlands for the more exclusively 

 scientific work of directing an observatory of terrestrial 

 physics ; but I am reminded by the presence of Prof. Mascart 

 of those services to meteorological optics and terrestrial 

 magnetism that make his place as President of the Inter- 

 national Committee so natural and fitting ; and of the solid 

 work of Angot on the diurnal variation of the barometer 

 and the reduction of barometric observations for height that 

 form conspicuous features among the many valuable 

 memoirs of the Central Bureau of Paris. 



Of the monumental work of Hildebrandsson in association 

 with Teisserenc de Bort on clouds, which culminated quite 

 recently in a most important addition to the pure kine- 

 matics of the atmosphere, I hope the authors will them- 

 selves speak. Prof. Willis Moore's presence recalls the 

 advances which Bigelow has made in the kinematics and 

 mechanics of the atmosphere under the auspices of Prof. 

 Moore's office, and reminds us of the debt of gratitude 

 which the English-speaking world owes to Prof. Cleveland 

 Abb6, of the same office, for his treatment of the literature 

 of atmospheric mechanics. 



If General Rykatcheff had only the magnificent climato- 

 logical Atlas of the Russian Empire to his credit he might 

 well rest satisfied. Prof. Mohn's contributions to the 

 mechanics of the atmosphere are examples of Norwegian 

 enterprise in the difficult problems of Meteorology, while 

 Dr. Paulsen maintains for us the right of meteorologists 

 to share in the results of the newest discoveries in physics. 

 Davis's enterprise in the far south does much to bring the 

 southern hemisphere within our reach, while Chaves places 

 the meteorology of the mid-Atlantic at the service of the 

 scientific world. Need I say anything of Billwiller's work 

 upon the special effect of mountains upon meteorological 

 conditions, or of the immense services of the joint editors 

 of the Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Prof. Pernter, of 

 Vienna, and Dr. Hellmann, of Berlin; of Palazzo 's con- 

 tributions to terrestrial magnetism? The mention of 

 Eliot's Indian work, or of Russell's organisation of 

 Australian meteorology, will be sufficient to show that the 

 dependencies and colonies are prepared to take a share in 

 scientific enterprise. And if I wished to reassure myself 

 that even the official meteorology of this country is hot 

 without its scientific ambitions and achievements, I would 

 refer not only to Scott's many services to science but also 

 to Strachey's papers on Indian and British Meteorology and 

 to the official contributions to Marine Meteorology. 



There is another name, well known in the annals of the 

 British Association, that will for ever retain an honoured 

 place among the pioneers of meteorological enterprise — • 

 that of James Glaisher, the intrepid explorer of the upper 

 air, the Nestor of meteorologists, who has passed away 

 since the last meeting of the Association. 



I should like especially to mention Prof. Hergesell's 

 achievements in the organisation of the international in-, 

 vestigation of the upper air by balloons and kites, because 

 it is one of the departments which offers a most promising 

 field for the future, and in which we in this country have 

 a good many arrears to make up. I hope Prof. Hergesell 

 will later on give us some account of the present position 

 of that investigation, and I am glad that Mr. Rotch, to 

 whose enterprise the development of what I may call the 

 scientific kite industry is largely due, is present to take 

 part in the discussion. 



Yet with all these achievements it must be confessed that 

 the progress made with the problems of general or 

 dynamical Meteorology in the last thirty years has been- 

 disappointing. When we compare the position of the sub- 

 ject with that of other branches of Physics it must be 

 allowed that it still lacks what astronomy found in Newton, 

 sound in Newton and Chladni, light in Young or Fresnel, 

 heat in Joule, Kelvin, Clausius, and Helmholtz, and elec- 

 tricity in Faraday and Maxwell. Above all, it lacks its 



