TRANSACTIONS OF SUCTION A. 541 



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBEM 11. 

 ^j . Sub-section — Astronomy and Meteorology. 



Ohaieman : W. N. Shaw, Sc.D., F.R.S. 



The Chairman delivered the following Address: — 



Methods of Meteorological Investigation. 



In opening the proceedings of the Sub-section devoted tn Cosmical Physics, 

 which we may take to be the application of the methods and results of Mathe- 

 matics and Physics to problems suggested by observations of the earth, the air, or 

 the sky, I desire permission to call your attention to some points of general 

 interest in connexion with that department which deals with the air. My 

 justification for doing so is that this is the first occasion upon which a position in 

 any way similar to that which I am now called upon to till has been occupied by one 

 whose primary obligations are meteorological. That honour I may with confidence 

 attribute to the desire of the Council of the Association to recognise the subject 

 80 admirably represented by the distinguished men of science who have come across 

 the seas to deliberate upon those meteorological questions which are the common 

 concern of all nations, and whom we are specially glad to welcome as members of 

 this Sub-section. Their presence and their scientific work are proof, if proof is 

 required, that meteorologists cannot regard meteorological problems as dissociable 

 from Section A ; that the prosecution of meteorological research is by the study of 

 the kinematics, the mechanics, the physics, or the mathematics of the data compiled 

 by laborious observation of the earth's atmosphere. 



But this is not the first occasion upon which the Address from the Chair of the 

 Sub-section has been devoted to Meteorology. Many of you will recollect the 

 trenchant manner in which a university professor, himself a meteorologist, an 

 astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician, dealt candidly with the present 

 position of Meteorology. After that Address I am conscious that I have no 

 claim to be called a meteorologist according to the scientific standard of Section A. 

 Professor Schuster has explained — and I cannot deny it — that the responsible duty 

 of an office from which I cannot dissociate myself is signing weather reports ; and 

 I could wish that the duty of making the next Address had been intrusted to one 

 of my colleagues from across the sea. But as Professor Schuster has set forth the 

 aspect of official meteorology as seen from the academic standpoint with a frank- 

 ness and candour which I think worthy of imitation, I shall endeavour to put 

 before you the aspect which the relation between Meteorology and academic 

 science wears from the point of view of an official meteorologist whose experience 

 is not long enough to have hardened into that most comfortable of all states of 

 mind, a pessimistic contentment. 



Meteorology occupies a peculiar position in this country. From the point of 

 view of Mathematics and Physics, the problems which the subject presents are 

 not devoid of interest, nor are they free from that difficulty which should 

 stimulate scientific effort in academic minds. They ailbrd a most ample field for 

 the display of trained intellect, and even of genius, in devising and applvmg 

 theoretical and experimental methods. And can we say that the work is unim- 

 portant ? Look where you will over the countries which the British Association 

 may be supposed to represent, either directly or indirectly, and say where a more 

 satisfactory knowledge of the laws governing the weather would be unimportant 

 from any point of view. Will you take the British Isles on the eastern shores of 

 the Atlantic, the great meteorological laboratory <5f the world, with the far- 

 reaching interests of their carrying trade ; or India, where the phenomena of the 

 monsoon show most conspicuously the efiects of the irregular distribution of land, 

 the second great meteorological cause, and where recurring famines still overstrain 

 the resources of administration. Take the Australasian colonies and the Cape, 

 which, with the Argentine Republic, where Mr. Davis is developing so admirably 



