ON METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS ON BEN NEVIS. 37 



2. Observations on earth- currents in Ben Nevis Observatory telegraph 

 cable. 



Copies of these papers so far as published are submitted with this 

 report. 



The plotting of the observations of storms made at the whole of the 

 sixty-six Scottish lighthouses, showing graphically the hours of the day 

 and night during which the wind blew with the force of a gale or storm 

 at each lighthouse, is now far advanced ; and on the same sheets have 

 been entered for the respective districts all cases where storm signals 

 have been hoisted under direction of the ^leteorological OflBce. The re- 

 sults show a very large number of failures, both of storms which have 

 occurred of which no warning had been sent, and of warnings issued with 

 no accompanying or following storm. These failures are at present being 

 investigated by the Ben Nevis observations in connection with the obser- 

 vations at Fort William and other low-lj'ing stations in that division of 

 Scotland. It is expected that a report of the results of this investigation 

 will be ready to be submitted to the next meeting of the Association. 



Arrangements are thus made by the Directors of the observatory for 

 the next twelve months for the investigation, in various directions, of the 

 relations of the Ben Nevis observations to weather, and particularly 

 storms, the workers being Messrs. Omond and Rankin at the observatory, 

 and Messrs. Buchan and Dickson in the office of the Scottish Meteoro- 

 logical Society. 



We do not require to inform Section A that we ground our claim on 

 the countenance and assistance of the British Association on the scientific 

 work of the observatory. One is surprised to meet occasionally in the 

 daily press and scientific literature of the day statements to the effect that 

 Ben Nevis is expected of and by itself, and without the help of synchro- 

 nous low-level observations, to frame warnings of coming storms, and 

 that if this is supposed not to be done, there is no hesitation in adding 

 that the establishment does not deserve public assistance. It is unneces- 

 sary to say that this Association has always been conspicuous in never 

 having withheld moral and material support from investigations until it 

 was shown that the results could be turned to practical purposes. 



Your Committee, however, from the first, while assuming that the 

 claim of the Observatory for support is the scientific work done by it, 

 have in each of their annual reports expressed their opinion that, as ob- 

 servations accumulate, and as the very laborious discussion of them pro- 

 ceeds, the high expectations they had formed as to the practical value of 

 these high-level observations in forecasting weather and storms have been 

 more than realised. 



At last year's meeting at Birmingham it was stated in Section A, as 

 an argument against supporting the Ben Nevis Observatory, that its ob- 

 servations were found to be useless in forecasting weather, but, the grounds 

 of this opinion were not given. A single statement will show that any 

 such opinion must rest on imperfect information. 



The Directors of the observatory and your Committee in their reports 

 have from the very outset insisted with some earnestness and strength 

 of language on the absolute necessity of combining the double observation 

 for all forecasting purposes — in other words, of combining the observation 

 at the top of Ben Nevis with that made at the same instant at Fort 

 William. The reason is obvious, it being by vertical gradients, and not 

 by horizontal gradients, that the observations at high-level observa- 



