590 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION A. 



This is tlie more necessary for these subjects hecause there is uo organised system 

 of academic teaching, with its attendant system of text-books. In a subject which 

 has many university teachers it might reasonably be supposed that any important 

 contribution would find its way into the text-books, which are constantly revised 

 for the use of students ; and yet, in his Presidential address to the Royal Society 

 in the November of last year, Lord Rayleigh felt constrained to point out that, 

 for the advance of science, although the main requirement is original work of a 

 high standard, that alone is not sufficient. ' The advances made must be secured, 

 and this can hardly be unless they are appreciated by the scientific public' He 

 adds that ' the history of science shows that important original work is liable to 

 be overlooked and is, perhaps, the more liable the higher the degree of originality. 

 The names of T. Young, Mayer, Carnot, Waterston, and B. Stewart will suggest 

 themselves to the physicist, and in other branches, doubtless, similar lists might be 

 made of workers whose labours remained neglected for a shorter or longer time.' 



If this is true of physics bow deplorably true it is of meteorology. If I allow a 

 liberal discount of over 50 per cent, from the numbers that I have given, and estimate 

 the number of efl'ective contribution^ to meteorology as recognised by the 'Inter- 

 national Catalogue ' at a thousand, which agrees pretty well with that given by 

 the ' Fortschritte der Physik,' and if I were to ask round this room the number of 

 these papers read by anyone here present, I am afraid the result would be dis- 

 heartening. Many of us have views as to the way in which the study of 

 meteorology ought to be pursued, but the views are not always based on an 

 exhaustive examinatiou of the writings of meteorologists. Few of us could give, 

 I think, any reasonable idea of the way in which it is being pursued by 

 the various institutions devoted to its application, and of the progress which 

 is being secured therein. Meteorological papers are written by the hundred, 

 and, whether they are important or unimportant, they often disregard what 

 has been already written in the same or some other language, and are them- 

 .selves in turn disregarded. I do not think I should be doing any injustice 

 if I applied similar remarks to some of the other subjects included in the table 

 which I have quoted. How many readers are there iu this country for an 

 author in terrestrial magnetism, atmospheric electricity, limnology, or physical 

 oceanography ? Bat, if the papers are not read and assimilated, the advancement 

 of science is not achieved, however original the researclies may be. 



By way of remedy for the neglect of important papers in physics Lord 

 Rayleigh suggests that teachers of authority, who, from advancing years or from 

 some other reason, find themselves unable to do much more work in the direction 

 of making original contributions, should make a point of helping to spread the 

 knowledge of the work done by others. But what of those subjects in which 

 there are no recognised teachers ? — and in this countrj' this is practically the case 

 with the subjects which I have mentioned. It is true that many of them are 

 made the occasion of international assemblies, at which delegates or repre- 

 sentatives meet. But such international assemblies are of necessity devoted, for 

 the most part, to the elaboration of the details of international organisation, and 

 not to the discussion of scientific achievements. The numbers attending are, 

 equally of necessity, very restricted. 



The want of opportunity for the discussion of progress in these sciences is 

 specially lamentable, because in its absence they lose the valuable assistance of 

 amateur workers, who might be an effective substitute for the students of an 

 academic study. In uo subject are there more volunteers, who take an active 

 part ill observing, than in meteorology ; but how few of them carry their work 

 beyond the stage of recording observations and taking means. The reason is not 

 lightly to be assigned to their want of capacity to carry on an investigation, but 

 far more, I believe, to the want of knowledge of the objects of investigation and 

 of the means of pursuing them. 



Among the agencies which iu the past have fostered the knowledge of these 

 subjects, and stimulated its pursuit, there stand out prominently the Annual 

 Meetings of this Association. It was the British Association which in 184'J 

 re-founded the Kew Observatory for the study of the physics of the atmosphere, 



