86 Anniversary Meeting. [Nov. 30, 



last year will be made by the Council for the months of May, June, and 

 July of 1876. 



The Meteorological Committee. — The anomalous connexion between the 

 Royal Society and the Meteorological Office on the one hand, and between 

 that Office and the Government on the other, to which and its consequences 

 I drew your attention in my last year's Address, is likely soon to be termi- 

 nated, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury having appointed a 

 Committee to inquire into the working of the present Office and the 

 value of the results hitherto obtained. 



Seeing that the operations of the Committee have been generally in a 

 great measure tentative, and have now extended over nine years, this 

 action of the Government is viewed with satisfaction by the Committee, 

 whose arduous services have been entirely gratuitous during this long 

 period. The value of their labour is indeed fully recognized in the 

 Treasury" Minute appointing the Committee, which expresses absolute 

 confidence in its efficiency, but thinks that the time has arrived for fur- 

 ther inquiry. 



According to the instructions of the Treasury, the inquiry is to be di- 

 rected to two principal points of scientific interest, viz. : — 



(1) How far the statistics hitherto collected have led to the discovery 

 or confirmation of Meteorological Laws. 



(2) How far the principles upon which storm-warnings are given have 

 been justified by results. 



I need hardly observe that these questions open up a very wide field of 

 inquiry of the highest importance to the meteorology of the future, whether 

 in this country or elsewhere. There can be no question but that the 

 Committee has rendered most important services to science and to the 

 country ; it is held in just estimation among continental physicists, and 

 its methods and results have been in a great measure adopted and followed 

 by them, in many cases without modification. 



Still the geographical position of the British Isles is one that renders 

 meteorological inquiry full of difficulty, and hence necessitates a very careful 

 periodic supervision of the measures employed to advance its theories and 

 to apply them to practice. Unlike the Atlantic States of America, we have 

 no area to the westward of us (which is emphatically our storm-bearing 

 quarter) upon which we can establish recording stations. We can have no 

 system like that of the American meteorologists, which would enable us 

 to obtain that knowledge of the atmospheric disturbances over the Atlantic 

 which they can procure of those which extend over the continental area 

 to the westward of their central Observatories. 



On the other hand, England has advantages for promoting the study 

 of terrestrial meteorology that no other country has — namely, her foreign 

 possessions and Colonies, and the command of the telegraphs with which 

 the ocean is in process of being crossed in every direction. "We 



