September 3, 1908J 



NA TURE 



427 



atmospheric electricity, with llie physics of land and water 

 in physical geography and geology, seismology and 

 terrestrial magnetism, oceanography and hydrography. It 

 is for the practical applications of these sciences to the 

 service of the navigator, the fisherman, the husbandman, 

 the miner, the medical man, the engineer, and the general 

 public that there is an obvious public want. 



Let me carry you with me in regarding these depart- 

 ments, primarily, as centres for establishing the growth 

 of science by bringing it to bear upon the practical business 

 of life, by a process of regular plantation, and not the 

 occasional importation of an exotic scientific expert. I 

 shall carry you with me also if 1 say that the gravest 

 danger to such scientific institutions is the tendency to 

 waste. I use the term " waste " not in its narrowest 

 but in its most liberal sense, to include waste of money, 

 waste of effort, waste of scientific opportunity. I do not 

 regard it as a waste that such a department should be 

 unable to emulate Timotheus' efforts. Any aspiration in 

 that direction is, of course, worthy of every encourage- 

 ment, but the environment is not generally suitable for 

 such achievements. I do, however, regard it as waste 

 if the divine Cecilia is not properly honoured, and if 

 advantage iS not taicen of the fullest and freest use of the 

 newest and best scientific methods, and their application 

 in the widest manner possible. 



I speak for the Office with which I am connected when 

 I say its temptations to waste are very numerous and 

 very serious. It is wasteful to collect observations which 

 will never be used ; it is equally wasteful to decline to 

 collect observations which in the future may prove to be 

 of vital importance. It is wasteful to discuss observations 

 that are made with inadequate appliances ; it is equally 

 wasteful to allow observations to accumulate in useless 

 heaps because you are not sure that the instruments are 

 good enough. It is wasteful to use antiquated methods 

 of computation or discussion ; it is equally wasteful to 

 use all the time in making trial of new methods. It is 

 wasteful to make use of researches if they are inaccurate ; 

 it is equally wasteful to neglect the results of researches 

 because you have not made up your mind whether they 

 are accurate or not. It is wasteful to work with an 

 inadequate system in such matters as synoptic meteor- 

 ology ; it is equally wasteful to lose heart because you 

 cannot get all the facilities which you feel the occasion 

 demands. 



It is the business of those responsible for the adminis- 

 tration of such an office to keep a nice balance of adjust- 

 ment between the different sides of activity, so that in the 

 long run the waste is reduced to a minimum. There must 

 in any case be a good deal of routine work which is 

 drudgery ; and if one is to look at all beyond the public 

 requirements and public appreciation of the immediate 

 present, there must be a certain amount of enterprise and 

 consequently a certain amount of speculation. 



Let me remark by the way that there is a tendency 

 among some of my meteorological friends to consider that 

 .1 meteorological establishment can be regarded as alive, 

 and even in good health, if it keeps up its regular output 

 of observations in proper order and up to date, and tliat 

 initiative in discussing the observations is exclusively the 

 duty of a central office. That is a view that I should 

 like to see changed. I do not wish to sacrifice my own 

 privilege of initiative in meteorological speculation, but 

 I have no wish for a monopoly. To me, I confess, the 

 speculation which may be dignified by the name of meteor- 

 ological research is the part of the office work which 

 makes the drudgery of routine tolerable. For my part 

 1 should like every worker in the Office, no matter how 

 humble his position may be, somehow or other to have the 

 opportunity of realising that he is taking part in the un- 

 ravelling of the mysteries of the weather ; and I do not 

 think that any establishment, or section of an establish- 

 ment, that depends upon science can be regarded as really 

 alive unless it feels itself in active touch with that specula- 

 tion which results in the advancement of knowledge. I do 

 not hesitate to appiv to other meteorological establish- 

 ments, and indeed to all scientific institutions that claim 

 an interest in meteorologv, the same criterion of life that 

 I apply to my own office. It is contained in the answer 



NO. 2027, vol.. 7S] 



to the question, How do you show your interest in the 

 advancement of our knowledge of the atmosphere? The 

 reply that such and such volumes of data and mean values 

 measure the contribution to the stock of knowledge leaves 

 me rather- cold and unimpressed. 



But to return to the endeavour after the delicate adjust- 

 ment between speculation and routine, which w'iU reduce 

 the waste of such an institution to a minimum ; experience 

 very soon teaches certain rules. 



I have said elsewhere that the peculiarity of meteor- 

 ological work is that an investigator is always dependent 

 upon other people's observations ; his own are only applic- 

 able in so far as they are compared with those of others. 

 Up to the present time, I have never known anyone take 

 up an investigation that involved a reference to accumu- 

 lated data without his being hampered and harassed by 

 uncertainties that might have been resolved if they had 

 been taken in time. I shall give you an example pre- 

 sently, but, in the meantime, experience of that kind is 

 so universal that it has now become v/ith us a primary 

 rule that any data collected shall forthwith be critically 

 examined and so far dealt with as to make sure that they 

 are available for scientific purposes — that is, for the pur- 

 poses of comparison. .\ second rule is that as public 

 evidence of the completion of this most important task there 

 shall be at least a line of summary in a published report, 

 or a point on a published map, as a primary representation 

 of the results. Such publication is not to be regarded as 

 the ultimate application of the observations, but it is 

 evidence that the observations are there, and are ready 

 for use. 



You will find, if you inquire, that at the Office we have 

 been gradually lining up these troops of meteorological 

 data into due order, with all their buttons on, until, from 

 the commencement of this year, anyone who wishes to do 

 so can hold a general review of the whole meteorological 

 army, in printed order — first-order stations, second-order 

 stations, rainfall stations, sunshine and wind stations, sea 

 temperatures and other marine observations — on his own 

 studv table, within six months of the date of the observa- 

 tions, upon paying to his Majesty's Stationery Office the 

 modest sum of four shillings and sixpence. For all the 

 publications except one the interval between observation 

 and publication is only six weeks, and as that one has 

 overtaken four vears of arrears within the last four years, 

 I trust that bv the end of this year six weeks will be the 

 full measure of the interval between observation and publi- 

 cation in all departments. This satisfactory state of affairs 

 vou owe to the indefatigable care and skill of Captain 

 Hepworth, Mr. Lempfert, and Mr. R. H. Curtis, and the 

 members of the staff of the Office who work under their 

 superintendence. I need say little about corresponding 

 work in connection with the Daily Weather Report, in 

 which Mr. Brodie is my chief assistant, although it has 

 received and is receiving a great deal of attention. The 

 promptitude with which the daily work is dealt with hardly 

 needs remark from me, though I know the difficulties of 

 it as well as anyone. If I spend only one long sentence 

 in mentioning that on July i, i<)oS, the morning hour of 

 observation at twenty-seven out of the full number of 

 twenty-nine stations in the British Isles was changed from 

 8 a.ni. to 7 a.m., and the corresponding post-offices, as 

 well as the Meteorological Office, opened at 7.15 a.m. in 

 order to deal with them, so that we may have a strictly 

 svnchronous international system for Western and Central 

 Europe, and thus realise the aspiration of many vears, 

 vou will not misunderstand me to mean that I estimate 

 the task as an easv one. 



The third general rule is that the effectiveness of the 

 data of all kinds, thus collected and ordered, should be 

 tested by the prosecution of some inquiry which makes 

 use of them in summary or in detail. It is here that the 

 stimulating force of speculative inouiry comes_ in ; and_ it 

 is in the selection and prosecution of these inquiries, which 

 test not onlv the adequacv and effectiveness of the data 

 collected, but also the efficiency of the Office as contribu- 

 ting to the advance of knowledge, that the most serious 

 responsibility falls upon the administrators of Parliamentary 

 funds. 



.Scientific Shvlocks are not the least exacting of the 



