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east coast, a sudden irruption of wind may be expected from the 

 S.E., to the confusion of the fishing fleet from the Tjne to the 

 Humber. If the pressure is abnormally high over France, a 

 cyclonic gale (as Scott shows in a paper lately pul)lished) will 

 pass over England, the direction of the wind depending upon 

 what edge the observer is happening to stand. If the area 

 of continental pressure be very large, the diameter will be 

 larger also, and the result will be that the greater part of 

 England will stand upon the southern edge, feeling the force 

 of a western gale. 



Again, the sweeping hypothesis has been lately started by 

 very trustworthy and scientific observers ; that barometric 

 depression depends altogether upon vapour pressure, or 

 rainfall. The larger rainfall upon the coasts of Australia 

 affords favourable opportunity for testing the accuracy of this 

 hypothesis. It would be well, too, for the interest of both 

 science and shipping to register observations how far some 

 Btorms are due to a rise, instead of a fall, in the barometer. 

 As some again depend upon variations of temperature, not 

 between one locality and another, but between one stratum 

 of the atmosphere and a higher one, it is important to register 

 the relative readings of the thermometer on Mount Nelson 

 and other elevations. 



Once more, it is equally important to bear in mind that 

 storms arise from an attempt to force a way between two 

 opposite currents ; that our island, when at rest, lies straight 

 in the path of a great western trade wind ; and that, according 

 to Mr. Meldrum's paper, read before the British Association, 

 upon observations made at the Mauritius, the east winds in 

 such conflicts always lie on the polar side of the westerly. 

 Our duty will be, as soon as we can, not only to register, as 

 we are now doing, the variations of weather, i.e., the move- 

 ments of our local atmosphere, but to notice the coincidence 

 with larger cosmical phenomena, for the purpose of estab- 

 lishing their physical relation one to another. The connection 

 between the Earth's magnetism and the greater activity of the 

 Sun's energy, revealed by the solar spots, has been for some 

 time past suspected and now established. I have observed, 

 as you may also have, the coincidence between the Aurora 

 Australiensis and the Aurora Borealis. The most splendid 

 exhibition of the former I have witnessed in Tasmania, 

 occurred upon the night of 24th September, 1872. I looked out 

 for records of the corresponding Aurora in the Northern 

 Hemisphere, and found them duly noticed in The Times, to 

 which newspaper I communicated the fact of the coincidence 

 of our own, whose brilliancy had been witnessed in New 

 Zealand as well as here. Some important questions remain 



