for the year 1873. xv 



the future healthful activity of the Society has been trans- 

 acted. 



Our library continues to be enriched by liberal donations 

 from kindred societies, various Governments, and individuals, 

 and it now forms a most important collection of the publica- 

 tions from scientific societies in all parts of the world. To 

 render these works readily available to the members it will 

 be necessary to get a great deal of binding and arrangement 

 done, a matter which your Council has already taken in 

 hand, and which it intends to push on with vigour. 



At the conclusion of this address, I have a few words further 

 to add concerning the internal business of the Society, but 

 leaving that subject for the present, I propose to occupy 

 your attention with some brief observations on more general 

 scientific matters. 



The immense importance to mankind generally that 

 attaches to further advancement in meteorology and the 

 elucidation of the laws which govern the weather, from out 

 of their complex entanglement with other physical condi- 

 tions, is becoming more and more apparent, and is claiming 

 the attention and energy of not only scientific individuals, 

 but States and Governments. 



The extension of the electric telegraph over a large portion 

 of the world has placed in the hands of physicists and meteor- 

 ologists a most powerful aid towards investigation in this 

 portion of Nature's dominions, and enables them to take far 

 more comprehensive views of the physical changes taking 

 place in the atmosphere and on the earth's surface, than was 

 previously possible. A few years ago it took months to 

 gather together the meteorological statistics from the various 

 stations of a small territory, and deduce from them what 

 changes had occurred. Now, it is not too much to say that 

 observations extending over a quarter of the globe are inter- 

 changed, digested, and conclusions deduced from them in a few 



