THE WEATHER, AND WEATHER PROPHETS. 145 



amount of persevering labour bestowed on daily and 

 hourly records of the weather, an insight (and no incon- 

 siderable one) has been gained into the causes which 

 determine it, and the sequence of phenomena which 

 exhibit them in action ; a style of connotation has com- 

 menced, which is already bearing practical fruit, in the 

 form of telegraphic warnings of approaching bad weather, 

 of positive value and interest. There can be no better 

 proof of this, than in the fact that the example set by 

 our own Admiralty in the establishment of a system of 

 coast weather signals, has already been followed to a 

 certain extent in Holland, and is in course of being so 

 in France. Nations are perhaps not overready in fol- 

 lowing up the improvements of their neighbours ; but 

 at all events, they are remarkably slow in adopting each 

 other's practical blunders. 



(6.) The indications of the coming weather which 

 experience has shown to be in any degree dependable, 

 have been embodied by Admiral Fitzroy in a sort of 

 code of instructions or " forecasts," which have been 

 so very extensively circulated by his praiseworthy zeal, 

 aided by the powerful means at his disposal, that we do 

 not consider it necessary to recapitulate them. They 

 rely mainly on the indications of the barometer and 

 thermometer, together with the observation of the direc- 

 tion and force of the wind at the time and place, and of 

 its immediately previous course ; all these particulars 

 being regarded not per se, but as in connexion with 

 each other; their indications not being absolute, but 

 relative : so that a rise in the barometer, coupled in one 



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