36 RETORT 1884. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Croi Brown 

 (Secretary) and Messrs. D. Milne Home, John Murray, and 

 Alexander Buchan, appointed for the purpose of co-operating 

 xviih the Directors of the Ben Nevis Observatory in making 

 Meteorological Observations on Ben Nevis. 



A grant of 50?. was made to the Committee by the British Association 

 in 1888 to aid the Directors of the Ben Nevis Observatory in making 

 meteorological observations on Ben Nevis during the summer months of 

 1883. The observations were in continuance of those made by Mr. Wragge 

 in 1881 and 1882. As Mr. Wragge was unable to make the observations 

 in 1883, owing to a contemplated visit to Australia early in the autunm, 

 the observations were made by Messrs. Whyte and Rankin, who had been 

 assistants to Mr. Wragge in 1881 and 1882. The observations began 

 on June 1, and were continued to October 31, 1883, with scrupulous 

 regularity and accuracy. 



The observations included two series at The Lake (1,840 feet high), 

 one on ascending and the other on descending the mountain, and five on 

 the top, at 8, 8.30, 9, 9.30, and at 10 a.m. ; and, with these, simultaneous 

 observations near sea-level at Fort William, to which one series was 

 added on starting for the mountain at 4 a.m., and another on returning 

 at 2 p.m. 



In the meantime the building of the permanent observatory was 

 pushed forward with such success that the observatory was formally 

 opened on October 17th. Shortly thereafter Mr. R. T. Omond, superin- 

 tendent, and Messrs. Rankin and Duncan, the assistants, went into 

 residence, and the regular observations began in the end of November. 

 These consist of hourly eye-observations by night as well as by day. The 

 Committee have much gratification in reporting that from November to 

 the present date (July 25), the barometric observations have been made 

 without the break of a single hour, and, since May 7, all the observations 

 have been made without intermission. The omissions of the thermometric 

 and other outside observations were mostly in winter and during the 

 night, when the stormy state of the weather rendered it unsafe to venture 

 out. Not unfrequently the observations were made by two of the 

 observers, and sometimes all the three, roped together for safety. The 

 Directors are making arrangements, by additions to the buildings and 

 the introduction of new instruments, to secure, for the future, a more 

 continuous record. 



In connection with the Ben Nevis observations, Mr. Colin Livingstone 

 makes eye-observations at Fort William at 8 and 9 a.m., 2, 6, 9, and 

 10 P.M., these being the hours at which observations are chiefly made in 

 the British Islands. Mr. Livingstone is also furnished with a barograph 

 and a thermograph, by which extremely valuable data have been contri- 

 buted. Normals for temperature and atmospheric pressure at Ben Nevis 

 Observatory have been calculated from the simultaneous observations 

 made there and at the sea-level station at Fort William for five months 

 for each of the years 1881, 1882, and 1883, from June to October, and 

 seven months, from December 1883 to June 1884. 



