1867.] 



Presidenfs Address, 



165 



the time at our command would permit, the reasons which had influenced 

 both the Government and the Royal Society in desiring the establishment 

 in this country of meteorological observatories conducted on a systematic 

 plan, and directed towards the attainment of a more perfect knowledge of 

 the meteorology of our country than we at present possess. 



The scheme, which, at the instance of the Board of Trade, had been sug- 

 gested by the President and Council, consisted in the establishment of six 

 or seven observatories, well distributed over the area of the British Islands, 

 furnished with self-recording instruments on the pattern of those devised 

 and in use at the Kew Observatory, and transmitting their records of the 

 temperature, pressure, electric and hygrometric state of the atmosphere, 

 and of the direction and force of the wind to a central office, where (under 

 the general superintendence of a com.mittee of scientific men) they should 

 undergo the processes of reduction and combination, and be applied to the 

 general study of the phenomena. 



The Government, acting with due caution, determined on submitting 

 this suggestion, as well as, generally, the functions of the meteorological 

 department of the Board of Trade as it had previously existed, to a com- 

 mittee of scientific and practical men to be nominated by the Government 

 itself, the Royal Society being invited to name one of the members. 



The suggestion to which I have adverted, of the establishment of a 

 small number of meteorological observatories supplied with self-recording- 

 instruments for the purpose of making a full, accurate, and continuous 

 record of meteorological phenomena at certain selected stations, appears to 

 have received the unqualified and emphatic approval of the committee, and 

 to have been viewed by them as the most effectual means of supplying a 

 secure and adequate basis for the discussion of the variations of the weather 

 in the British Islands. Self-recording instruments are spoken of in the 

 report as likely to prove of eminent local and international utility ; it is 

 anticipated that the establishment of observatories furnished with them in 

 England may be expected to confer a wide benefit, that they would give 

 precision and fulness to the charts of our own weather, and would set an 

 example that foreign governments would probably soon follow, and that 

 they would afford material in a very acceptable form to meteorologists at 

 home and abroad for the discussion of weather phenomena. 



The Board of Trade, after reference to the Admiralty and to the Trea- 

 sury, adopted the Report of their Committee in a " Circular" dated No- 

 vember 29th, 1866 ; and at the same time asked the Royal Society whether 

 they would be willing to name a committee of their own members to give 

 their gratuitous services in the organization of the observatories recom- 

 mended, and in the general superintendence of the Meteorological De- 

 partment. 



The public service thus requested was unhesitatingly undertaken ; and 

 on the 13th of December, 1866, a committee was named of eight of the 

 Fellows of the Royal Society who were willing to devote themselves to 

 the onerous and responsible duties of such an undertaking. Estimates 



VOL. XVI. r 



