WIND AND WEATHEE CHAETS. 125 



(44.) Wind and Weather Charts, &c.— As before stated, it is to Captain 

 Maury that the credit is due for initiating the system by which data from 

 ships' logs are collected and formulated on the Meteorological Charts now 

 published by our own and foreign nations. Captain (then Lieutenant) 

 Maury's "Pilot Charts" were published in 1849, and were repubhshed 

 in a different form, in 1855, by our own Meteorological Department, under 

 the direction of Eear-Adiairal FitzEoy, and by the Eoyal Netherlands 

 Meteorological Institute, which has done so much for the advancement of 

 this knowledge. Since that time a great impetus has been given to these 

 researches by the gratuitous labours of innumerable commanders of vessels, 

 and others, who have kept carefully-compiled logs specially for the use of 

 the various meteorological institutions, on which the more recent publica- 

 tions are based. 



Among the more noted of these works may be mentioned those of our 

 own Meteorological Office, including the " Synchronous Weather Charts 

 of the North Atlantic and the adjacent Continents, from August 1st, 1882, 

 to September 3rd, 1883;" "Wind and Current Charts," by Lieutenant 

 Brault, of the French Navy, 1880; "Daily Synoptic Weather Charts of 

 the North Atlantic Ocean, &c.," published by the Danish Meteorological 

 Institute and the Deutsche Seewarte (a continuation of the work com- 

 menced by the late Captain Hoffmeyer, of the Danish Navy) ; the Charts 

 accompanying the Beport on Atmospheric Circulation, based on the 

 Observations made on board H.M.S. Challenger, 1873 — 1876, and other 

 Meteorological Observations, by Alexander Buchan, M.A., LL.D., 1889; 

 " Atlantischer Ozean. Ein Atlas von 86 Karten, die physikalischen 

 Verhaltnisse und die Verkehrs-Strassen darstellend, mit einer erlauternden 

 Einleitung," pubHshed at Hamburg by the Deutsche Seewarte, 1882; 

 and last, though not least, the valuable " Meteorological and Pilot 

 Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean," issued monthly by the United States 

 Hydrographic Office, Washington. 



(45.) Still, after all, but Httle has been done by these laborious re- 

 searches towards showing the mariner what weather, &c., to expect with 

 certainty in any particular district outside the Trade Wind regions, or as 

 to the course of, and area covered by, disturbances he may meet with. 

 In one passage favourable winds may be met with, and in the next passage 

 at the same season nothing but head winds and bad weather may be ex- 

 perienced. The Weather Charts show with precision what has occurred, 

 but what the future weather may be in the Northern part of the North 

 Atlantic Ocean appears to be only a matter of chance. If it be difficult to 

 forecast the weather ashore for only a few hours ahead, with all the 

 appHances and advantages of a fixed observatory, how much more difficult 

 must it be when deaUng with a solitary vessel on the wide ocean. 



Space will not allow us here to enter into the interminable discus- 

 sions connected with this subject, even were it of much practical use 

 to do so. Many more years of patient observation are necessary before 

 any system can be hoped to be evolved from such discussions. All we can 

 do in this work is to show, for the guidance of mariners, the results of 

 what has hitherto been effected, while the student must refer for full details 

 to the works already quoted, and others too numerous to mention. 



