CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 41 



Association and the local societies gain the strength which arises from 

 federation. 



The Council having nominated me to the honourable office of Chair- 

 man, my first and most pleasant duty is to offer you a hearty welcome ;. 

 and my second, which is a somewhat personal one, is to ask you to 

 remember that it is not given to every chairman mentally to photograph 

 every one present, and to remember not merely every face, but the name 

 of its owner ; it is one thing to be Chairman whom every one can see and 

 recognise, it is quite another thing for the Chairman to remember all the 

 faces before him. It is therefore from no lack of courtesy, but from the 

 physiological necessity, that I request that each delegate will preface his re- 

 marks by mentioning his name, and that of the Society which he represents. 



I have already intimated my opinion that if a man wishes to do good 

 work for science he must take some field, or corner of a field, and labour 

 there. I have only a corner — rainfall, but I think that I know enough 

 about some other parts of the field of meteorology to point out spots 

 where good work could be done — and work precisely suitable for the 

 members of your societies. Of course in the few minutes during which I 

 may detain you I cannot enter into details, but there is such an organisa- 

 tion as the Post Office. I do answer as many letters as I can, and an 

 extra twenty or thirty will make no appreciable difference. 



NoAv, to take up the syllabus : — 



1. Meteorological observations in general. — Do not encourage tlie 

 keeping of records from any but good instruments, properly placed. A 

 hard frost occurs, and forthwith there is a crop of wonderful records, some 

 from thermometers badly placed, some from thermometers which never 

 were good, some from good thermometers allowed to go wrong. An 

 incorrect statement is much worse than none at all ; see to it then that 

 such records as you publish are worthy of your Society. I say no more 

 on this head because the Royal Meteorological Society has published, 

 almost at cost price (Is.), an amply illustrated pamphlet, 'Hints to 

 Observers,' which will show any one what, and when, and how, observations 

 ought to be made. It is by no means necessary to start with an elaborate 

 and costly set of instruments ; but see to it that the instruments which 

 you do have are good, and that no records except from good and tested 

 instruments, properly placed, ever appear in your volumes. 



2, Sea and river femperatttre. — I have interpolated the words ' and 

 river ' because I ouglit to have put them in the syllabus originally, and 

 because my attention has been drawn to the subject by an excellent 

 summary of Dr. Adolf Forster's work upon the temperatures of European 

 rivers, by Mr. H. N. Dickson, given in the September number of ' The 

 Geographical Journal.' You will remember that for a few years there was 

 a Committee of the British Association studying river temperature ; and I 

 am sure that if your societies took up the investigation, a fresh committee 

 could be appointed, so that we should not need to go to a German book to 

 learn the details of the temperature of the Thames. The work is easy, 

 healthy, and inexpensive. Easy, because it merely involves a walk to a 

 bridge, a jetty, or a pier- head, the lowering of the thermometer into the 

 water, entering the reading, and carrying it home again ; healthy, from the 

 regularity of the walk ; and inexpensive, because the verified K. O. 

 thermometer and its copper case, cord, and everything, could be sent to 

 any part of the country complete for a sovereign. 



