464 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 719 



servation at twenty-seven out of the full 

 number of twenty-nine stations in the Brit- 

 ish Isles was changed from 8 a.m. to 7 a.m., 

 and the corresponding postoffices, as well 

 as the Meteorological Office, opened at 7 :15 

 A.M. in order to deal with them, so that we 

 may have a strictly synchronous interna- 

 tional system for western and central Eu- 

 rope, and thus realize the aspiration of 

 many years, you will not misunderstand 

 me to mean that I estimate the task as an 

 easy one. 



The third general rule is that the effect- 

 iveness of the data of all kinds, thus col- 

 lected and ordered, should be tested by the 

 prosecution of some inquiry which makes 

 use of them in summary or in detail. It is 

 here that the stimulating force of specula- 

 tive inquiry comes in ; and it is in the selec- 

 tion and prosecution of these inquiries, 

 which test not only the adequacy and effect- 

 iveness of the data collected but also the 

 efficiency of the office as contributing to the 

 advance of knowledge, that the most serious 

 responsibility falls upon the administrators 

 'of parliamentary funds. 



Scientific Shylocks are not the least ex- 

 •acting of the tribe, and there have been 

 times when I have thought I caught the 

 rumination : 



Shy. Three thousand ducats ? 'tis a good round 

 sum! 



Bas. For the which, as I told you, Antonio 

 shall be bound. 



Shy. Antonio is a good man? 



Bas. Have you heard any imputation to tne 

 contrary ? 



Shy. Oh! no, no, no, no. . . . Yet his means 

 are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to 

 'Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand, 

 moreover, upon the Rialto, that he hath a third 

 in Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ven- 

 tures he hath squandered abroad. But ships are 

 but boards, sailors but men. There is the peril 

 of water, winds and rocks. . . . Three thousand 

 ducats. 



We at the Meteorological Office are very 

 much in Antonio 's position. Our means of 

 research are very much in supposition : four 

 observatories and over four hundred sta- 

 tions of one sort or another in the British 

 Isles; an elaborate installation of wind- 

 measuring apparatus at Holyhead; besides 

 other ventures squandered abroad ; an ane- 

 mometer at Gibraltar, another at St. He- 

 lena; a sunshine recorder at the Falkland 

 Isles, half a dozen sets of instruments in 

 British New Guinea, and a couple of hun- 

 dred on the wide sea. The efforts seem so 

 disconnected that the rumination about the 

 ducats is not unnatural. 



And you must remember that we lack an 

 inestimable advantage that belongs to a 

 physical laboratory or a school of mathe- 

 matics, where the question of the equiva- 

 lent number of ducats does not arise in 

 quite the same way. The relative disad- 

 vantage that I speak of is that in an office 

 the allowance for the use of time and ma- 

 terial in practise and training disappears. 

 All the world seems to agree that time or 

 money spent on teaching or learning is well 

 spent. In the course of twenty years' ex- 

 perience at a physical laboratory, and in 

 examinations not a few, I have seen M and 

 N or the wave-length of sodium light de- 

 termined in ways that would earn very few 

 ducats on the principle of payment by re- 

 sults; but, having regard to the psycholog- 

 ical effect upon the culprit or the examiner, 

 the question of ducats never came in. 

 Wisely or unwisely public opinion has been 

 educated to regard the psychological effect 

 as of infinite value compared with the im- 

 mediate result obtained. But in an office 

 the marks that an observer or computer gets 

 for showing that he "knew how to do it," 

 when he did not succeed in doing it, do not 

 count towards a "first class," and we have 

 to abide by what we do ; we can not rely on 

 what we might have done. Consequently 

 our means in supposition, spread over sea 



