208 Report of the Meteorological Committee. [Jan. 20, 



The Scottish Society have sought to obtain a grant in aid of their 

 general objects from the Parliamentary vote ; but the Committee have 

 considered that, as they are only agents for directing the application of 

 the fund at their disposal, they have no authority to make grants" to be 

 dealt with at the discretion of other bodies, and that their action is re- 

 stricted by the couditious that the objects to which it is directed shall be 

 among those for which the grant is made, and that the expenditure shall 

 take place in a manner that admits of their exercising a control over its 

 objects and results. 



Before leaving this branch of the subject, the Committee would re- 

 mark that their operations would have been seriously crippled in the 

 year 1871, when the British Association withdrew its annual subsidy to 

 Kew Observatory, the central observatory of their system, had not Mr. 

 G-assiot, oue of their own body, come forward and most munificently 

 placed in the hands of the Eoyal Society a sum of £10,000 for the en- 

 dowment of the establishment, thereby affording ample funds for the 

 continuance of the observatory in full activity. 



In conclusion the Committee would make a few general remarks on 

 the principles that have guided them in organizing the Meteorological 

 Office and controlling its operations. 



They have considered it to be their duty to give general effect to the 

 recommendations of the Committee of 1866, and to establish and carry 

 on for a considerable length of time, with the least possible amount of 

 change, a well-arranged and uniform system of observation and of publi- 

 cation, being satisfied that continuity of method is one of the most essen- 

 tial elements of success in dealing with complicated physical phenomena. 



The Committee on their first appointment laid down with much deli- 

 beration the course to be pursued by the Office, and gave considerable 

 attention to the removal of the numerous difficulties which necessarily 

 occurred in the establishment of so much that was novel, especially in 

 connexion with the self-recording instruments. 



Seeing that the Committee of 1866 had recommended a renewed in- 

 quiry into the proceedings of the Office after three years' trial, and feel- 

 ing that under any circumstances its constitution was only provisional, 

 the Committee have aimed at leaving the principal officers employed in 

 the duties of the department as little fettered as possible as to the pre- 

 cise manner in winch details were conducted, looking rather to securing 

 satisfactory results of the work, and to exercising that strict financial 

 control over the application of the funds placed at their command which 

 their duty to the Boyal Society and the Government required of them. 



They have also felt that, in the existing condition of meteorological 

 knowledge, it would have been not only presumptuous on their part, but 

 positively mischievous to have attempted to assume a position of autho- 

 rity in enunciating new doctrines of their own or in criticising the 



