1887.] Address. 79 



of all proportion to its generalised truths. It has been remarked by 

 more than one recognised authority that perhaps no science has such a 

 tale of work to shew that is virtually wasted labour : long registers of 

 observations recorded at great expense and at the cost of no small devo- 

 tion and self-denial, but which have remained infructuous, owing to the 

 want of that familiarity with physical laws that is requisite to give 

 them validity or to turn them to useful account. But it is encourag- 

 ing to note that, of late years, this reproach has lost much of its force 

 and generality. Although the fundamental laws of thermotics and 

 pneumatics are still, to a large extent, unknown to many of those engaged 

 in collecting observations, yet, owing to the action of meteorological 

 societies and institutions, this work has become systematised and render- 

 ed at least capable of bearing fruit. If we have still to admit that weather 

 prognosis, which is the ultimate aim, is, in its methods, mainly empiri- 

 cal, we have but to turn to such periodicals as the Journals of the 

 Austrian and German meteorological societies, not to mention such 

 separate publications as those of Ferrel, Mohn, and Guldberry, and 

 to Hann's ' Climatology ' to see that the alliance of meteorology with 

 its sister science, physics, is being knit year by year in closer bonds. 



The greater advances achieved of recent years have been made by 

 inductive methods, of the application of which the laws of storms 

 afford, perhaps, the most striking example. The activity in this field 

 of inquiry is great and increasing ; and the last two years have furnished 

 some valuable additions to our knowledge, of which I may notice one or 

 two. In America, the veteran professor, Elias Loomis, has crowned the 

 labours of half a century by the publication of a revised edition of his 

 4 Contributions to Meteorology.' This work, the first part of which only 

 has reached India, is perhaps the most comprehensive summary of the 

 tracks and other general features of cyclonic storms ever yet compiled. 

 It deals most fully with the storms of North America, for which ample 

 details have been furnished to him by the elaborate system of weather 

 telegraphy for which the United States stand pre-eminent amongst na- 

 tions. But it also describes and discusses the more important features 

 of storm motion in other parts of the northern hemisphere, and brings 

 together, in a moderate compass, the results of the older, as well as of 

 the recent, workers in this field of research. 



Nearer home, important work on the cognate subject of the typhoons 

 of the Chinese seas has been done by M. Decheorens, the eminent direc- 

 tor of the Zi-ka-wei observatory at Shanghai, and also by Dr. Doberek. 

 In India, Mr. J. Eliot has given us a memoir on the Akyab cyclone of 

 1884, and Mr. Pedler one on the disastrous storm of 1885 which swept 

 away the settlement at Hookeytolla in Orissa and caused such loss of 



