-916 Transactions.—M iscellaneous. 
14. They are as follows :— 
Great BRITAIN. New ZEALAND. 
N. lat. Inches. S. lat. Inches. 
Elgin aS : 577-38: 29:790 Southland.. GILT 29-803 
Culloden .. 1: Hp Ju 29-765 Dunedin .. | 45 "Da 29-873 
Glasgow .- 250. 59 29-792 Queenstown pee 29-987 
Durham .. cxi 54 46 29-810 Christchurch ..] 48. 82 29:871 
Belast  .. i| m4 96 29:882 Bealey «- apie aed: Se 29-805 
Armagh .- .,.] 64 81 29-722 okitika .. ..| 42 4 29-932 
York ap oe Dd DM 29-872 Cape Campbell .. 41 50 29:968 
Stonyhurst «5| 268264 29:807 Nelson  .. ..| 41 16 29-901 
Liverpool .. d. BR. MD 29:889 Wellington 41 16 29-890 
Dublin... t oS as 29:886 Wanganui M. 9 56 30-070 
Greenwich uoi: 29 29:925 Napier  .. ES 9 29 29:917 
Clifton  .. si BI 25 29-809 Taranaki .. cl 89 8 29-933 
orthing .. cp200 49 29-956 Auckland .. «cp B8- DU 29-930 
Helston .. os BO oM. 29-977 Mongonui .. mean Lay ET S 29-977 
Mean.. i Be 29:848 Mean.. o ES 29:918 
Difference in favour of New Zealand, 0-07. 
15. Hence it is plain that the mean atmospherie pressure of New 
Zealand, instead of being lower than that of Great Britain, is '07 inch 
higher, and so disappears the clever but illusive theory built upon the 
contrary assumption. In comparing the foregoing tables, it is curious to 
note that the barometrie means at the respective English and New Zealand 
stations of lowest latitude are precisely identical, but the mean, although 
the highest in great Britain, is not so in New Zealand. The means of the 
three Seotch observatories, en revanche, are considerably lower than that of 
Southland, which is the minimum New Zealand mean. . It is also notice- 
able that whereas the lowest latitude of any English observatory is 50° 7’ 
viz., Helston, in Cornwall, the highest latitude of any New Zealand observa- 
tory—that of Southland, for twelve years under my personal charge, and, I 
believe the most southern in the world—is only 46? 17^. Thus, the most 
polar New Zealand observatory is 9? 59’ nearer the Equator than the 
nearest English one, while the nearest New Zealand observatory is no less 
16. Dr. Newman’s major premiss I do not intend to discuss in the present 
paper, although the correctness of his assumption is open to considerable 
argument. This is the case more especially, inasmuch as it is based to a 
great extent on another assumption—that pressure increases or diminishes 
conversely with the degree of atmospheric humidity. A long series of 
careful hygrometrical observations proves conclusively not only that the 
two atmospheric conditions are not necessarily correlative, but that often a 
marked barometric depression is associated with an equally marked atmos- 
pheric dryness ; at all events, so far from the surface of the earth as 
