14 The Present State of Meteorology. 



pared bulletins published in the daily papers. While, there- 

 fore, the more strictly local and practical requirements are thus 

 admirably served, by reason of the oceanic observations and 

 the widely spread area from which daily telegrams are re- 

 ceived, the more theoretical demands from which to deduce 

 information concerning the relations that prevail between the 

 atmospheric movements and conditions in different parts of 

 a considerable portion of the earth's surface are supplied. 



France, Belgium^ Denmark, Holland, Germany, Sweden, 

 Russia, Austria, and Italy, all co-operate in similar work ; 

 but while America and England undoubtedly contribute 

 most liberally, each of the nations mentioned grants State 

 funds for meteorological purposes varying from £500 to 

 £6000 annually. The latter sum, if we take into consider- 

 ation the value of money and cost of computing power in 

 most of the countries named, would represent an amount 

 equivalent to, if not more than, the annual grant made by 

 the British Parliament. 



These brief references will convey a pretty correct notion 

 of what is being done for meteorology in the Western world. 

 I have only to mention that in South America, Cape Colony, 

 India, China, Japan, Mauritius, and other places, systematic 

 observations are made^ to show that a pretty round sum 

 must be expended every year for the purpose of recording 

 what the weather has been, with the glimmer of a hope that 

 the power of predicting what it will be may be eventually 

 secured. 



The outcome of all this expenditure of money and labour 

 is at present easily summed up. In America it is said, and 

 I do not doubt it, that immense and increasing benefit is 

 conferred on the community by prompt publication of the 

 " probabihties." In Great Britain and Northern Europe 

 most of the dangerous storms are foreseen, and much loss of 

 life and property no doubt prevented ; for the rest of the 

 world, with some few exceptions, the results are confined to 

 furnishing climatic statistics generally of mere local interest, 

 the piling up of volume upon volume of books filled with 

 regular readings of instruments and descriptions of atmo- 

 spheric appearances, which are exchanged between the 

 observatories and scientific institutions of the world, forming 

 so much building material for our future meteorological 

 architects. 



It will be evident from what I have abeady stated that 



