Ixxiv BEPOET — 1876. 



and that the origin of most of our storms lies eastward of the longitude of 

 Newfoundland. 



As regards the velocity of the wind, the cup-anemometer of Dr. Robinson 

 has fully realized the expectations of its discoverer ; and the venerable 

 astronomer of Armagh has been engaged during the past summer, with all 

 the ardour of youth, in a course of laborious experiments to determine the 

 constants of his instrument. From seven years' observations at the Observa- 

 tory of Armagh, he has found that the mean velocity of the wind is 

 greatest in the S.S.W. octant and least in the opposite one, and that the 

 araouut of wind attains a masimum in Januarj^, after which it steadily 

 decreases, with one slight exception, till July, augmenting again till the end 

 of the year. 



Passing to the subject of electricity, it is Vv"ith pleasui'e that I have to 

 announce the failure of a recent attempt to deprive Oerstedt of his great 

 discovery. It is gratifying thus to find high reputations vindicated, and 

 names which all men love to honour transmitted with undimiuished lustre 

 to posterity. At a former meeting of this Association, remarkable for an 

 unusual attendance of distinguished foreigners, the central figui'e was 

 Oerstedt. On that occasion Sir John Hcrschel in glowing language compared 

 Oerstedt's discovery to the blessed dew of heaven which only the master- 

 mind could draw down, but which it was for others to turn to account and 

 use for the fertilization of the earth. To Franklin, Volta, Coulomb, Oerstedt, 

 Ami)cre, Faraday, Seebeck, and Ohm arc due the fundamental discoveries of 

 modern electricity — a science whose applications in Davy's hands led to 

 grander results than alchemist ever dreamed of, and in the hands of others 

 (among whom Wheatstone, Morse, and Thomson occupy the foremost place) to 

 the marvels of the electric telegraph. "When we proceed from the actual 

 phenomena of electricity to the molecular conditions upon which those 

 phenomena depend, we are confronted with questions as recondite as any 

 with which the physicist has had to deal, but towards the solution of which 

 the researches of Faraday have contributed the most precious materials. The 

 theory of electrical and magnetic action occupied formerly the powerful minds 

 of Poisson, Green, and Gauss ; and among the living it will surely not be 

 invidious to cite the names of Weber, Helmholtz, Thomson, and Clerk Max- 

 well. The work of the latter on electricity is an original essay worthy in 

 every way of the great reputation and of the clear and far-seeing intellect 

 of its author. 



Among recent investigations I must refer to Professor Tait's discovery of 

 consecutive neutral points in certain thermo-electric junctions, for which he 

 was lately awarded the Keith prize. This discovery has been^the residt of 

 an elaborate investigation of the properties of thermo-electric currents, and 

 is specially interesting in reference to the theory of dynamical electricity. 

 Nor can I omit to mention the very interesting and original experiments of 



