542 REPORT — 1903. 



the methods of the Weather Bureau, constitute the only land projections into the 

 great southern ocean, the region of ' planetary meteorology ' ; Australia, with 

 its periods of paralysing drought; the Cape, where the adjustment of crops to 

 climate is a question of the hour ; or take Canada, which owns at the same time a 

 granary of enormous dimensions and a large portion of the Arctic Circle ; or take 

 the scattered islets of the Atlantic and Pacitic or the shipping that goes wherever 

 ships can go. The merest glance will show that we stand to gain more by scientific 

 knowledge, and lose more hy unscientific ignorance of the weather, than any other 

 country. The annual loss on account of the weather would work out at no 

 inconsiderable sum per head of the population, and the merest fraction of success 

 in the prevention of what science must regard as preventible loss would compensate 

 for half a century of expenditure on meteorological oflices. Or take a less selfish 

 view and consider for a moment our responsibilities to the general community of 

 nations, the advantages we possess as occupying the most important posts of 

 observation. If the meteorology of the world were placed, as perhaps it ought to 

 be, in the hands of an International Commission, it can be no exaggeration to say 

 that a considerable majority of the selected sites for stations of observation would 

 be on British soil or British ships. We cannot help being the most important 

 agency for promoting or for obstructing the extension of meteorological science. 

 I say this bluntly and perhaps crudely because I feel sure that ideas not dissimilar 

 from these must occasionally suggest themselves to every meteorologist, British or 

 foreign ; and if they are to be expressed — and I think you will agree with me that 

 they ought to be — a British meteorologist ought to take the responsibility of 

 expressing them. 



And how does our academic organisation help us in this matter of more than 

 parochial or even national importance ? There was a time when Meteorology was 

 a recoo-nised member of the large physical family and shared the paternal affection 

 of all^professors of Physics ; but when the poor nestling began to grow up and 

 develop some individuality electricity developed simultaneously with the speed of 

 a youn"- cuckoo. The professors of Physics soon recognised that the nest was not 

 large enough for both, and with a unanimity which is the more remarkable because 

 in some of these academic circles utilitarianism is not a condition of existence, 

 and pure science, not market value, might be the dominant consideration — with 

 singular unanimity the science which bears in its left hand, U not in its right, 

 sources of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice was recognised as a veritable 

 Isaac and the science wherein the fruits of discovery must be free for all the 

 world and in which there is not even the most distant prospect of making a 

 fortune — that science was ejected as an Ishmael. Electrical engineering has an 

 abundance of academic representatives ; brewing has its professorship and its corps 

 of students, but the specialised physics of the atmosphere has ceased to share the 

 academic hospitality. So far as I know the British universities are unanimous iu 

 dissemblino- their love for Meteorology as a science, and if they do not actually 

 kick it downstairs they are at least content that it has no encouragement to go 

 up. In none is there a professorship, a lectureship, or even a scholarship, to help 

 to form the nucleus of that corps of students which may be regarded as the 

 primary condition of scientific development. 



Havino-cut the knot of their difficulties in this very human but not very 

 humane method, the universities are, I think, disposed to adopt a method of 

 iustification which is not unusual in such cases; indications are not wanting 

 which disclose an opinion that Meteorology is, after all, not a science. There 

 are, I am aware, some notable exceptions ; but do I exaggerate if I say that 

 when university professors are kind enough to take an interest in the labours 

 of meteorologists, who are doing their best amid many discouragements, it is 

 o-enerally to point out that their work is on the wrong lines; that they had 

 better give it up and do something else ? And the interest which the univer- 

 sities display in a general way is a good-humoursd jest about the futility of 

 weather prophecy, and the kindly suggestion that the improvement in the pre- 

 diction of the next twenty-four hours' weather is a natural limit to the orbit of ap 

 Ishmaelite's ambition. 



