Royal Institution. 395 



perhaps not more than a small fraction of an inch in a year. It 

 would of course be very desirable to obtain experimental evidence 

 of such a property of the drift ; but this would be an exceedingly 

 difficult and tedious task. In absence of such experiments, cor- 

 roborative evidence may perhaps be derived from the fact of the 

 disappearance of Roman villas which are afterwards exhumed. 

 Coupling this testimony with that derived from the general cha- 

 racter of the matter which surrounds us, it cannot be denied that 

 such a property of the drift is at least possible ; in which case 

 we should, I think, be deterred from framing any theory regard- 

 ing the great age of our race based upon the position of these 

 implements, especially when such views are contradicted by 

 strong evidence from another quarter. 



I am, Gentlemen, 

 Kew Observatory, Your obedient Servant, 



April 16, 1862. Balfour Stewart. 



L VII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



March 28, 1862.— John Peter Gassiot, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 

 "AN Explanation of the Meteorological Telegraphy, and its Basis, 

 -^- now under trial at the Board of Trade." By Rear-Admiral 

 FitzRoy, F.R.S. 



The telegraphic communication of meteorological changes from 

 distant stations to a central position, whence occasional warnings 

 of impending storms might be given, which has been organized and 

 tried by Government, had its origin at a Meeting of the British 

 Association in 1859, at Aberdeen, under the presidency of that 

 deeply lamented Prince whose short life was wholly devoted to the 

 most useful objects. It was then resolved by their Council that 

 application should be made to Her Majesty's Government for an 

 organization and trial of a plan by which the approach of storms 

 might be telegraphed to distant localities. At two meetings in 

 Buckingham Palace, early the following year (1860), minutes were 

 authorized on this subject, and correspondence ensued which resulted 

 in establishing a telegraphic communication of meteorological facts 

 between twenty home stations, besidesforeign ones, and daily withParis. 



The Aberdeen Meeting had only just terminated, when public 

 attention was startled by the loss of the ' Royal Charter.' It so 

 happened that the storm w T hich caused the destruction of that iron 

 ship — notwithstanding power of steam additional to that of sails, 

 and while a sailing ship, managed differently, was bearing its brunt 

 uninjured within a few miles distant* — that storm, completely cy- 

 clonic, passed over the middle of England, and could be more fully 

 investigated than any storm hitherto, because in. every direction 

 * « The Cumming.' 



