504 



Anniversary Meeting, 



[Nov. 30, 



led to the knowledge of a fact of so much theoretical importance entitles 

 itself to some consideration ; whilst no one can doubt that a knowledge 

 of the fact itself strengthens the desire for the multiplication of stations 

 in distant parts of the globe, at which these phenomena are systematic- 

 ally observed ; and in this view the Society will hear with pleasure that, 

 by intelligence very recently received, we learn that the authorities in 

 the colonies of Mauritius and Victoria have decided on the establishment 

 of magnetical observatories supported by colonial funds, to be equipped 

 with similar instruments to those at Kew, and to be conducted on the 

 system which is there exemplified. "We are led in these two instances 

 to recognize the advantage which a colony derives from having a Go- 

 vernor whose education has fitted him to appreciate the importance of 

 cultivating the physical sciences. 



We have learnt with satisfaction from Stockholm that the Swedish 

 Expedition to Spitzbergen has returned from the second year of a 

 survey preliminary to the measurement of an arc of the meridian ; 

 and that the result has been that no doubt is entertained of the prac- 

 ticability of the measurement of an arc of at least 3°, with a possibility 

 of further extension. The report of the completion of the preliminary 

 survey is be published in the early part of the winter ; and the summer 

 of 1865 is looked forward to for the commencement of the arc itself. 



In Meteorology, we have, in the 2nd Part of the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions for 1863, the first of a series of papers by Dr. Hermann de 

 Schlagintweit on the " Numerical Elements of Indian Meteorology," 

 based on observations made chiefly by officers in the late East India 

 Company's Service at 207 stations, the original records of which were 

 placed by the Indian Grovernment in the author's hands for reduction 

 and coordination. The present paper discusses the temperatures and 

 the isothermal lines over India, both for the entire year and for each 

 of the meteorological seasons. The diff'erences between the forms of 

 the isothermals in the different seasons are excessive, and full of in- 

 struction to climatologists who wiU study their causes. Eor the full 

 elucidation of the subject, however, we must await a similar coordina- 

 tion of the barometric and hygrometric relations ; there is probably no 

 portion of the globe where the connexion of the periodic variations of 

 the barometer, thermometer, and hygrometer manifests itself so clearly 

 and so instructively as in Hindostan. There the "Trades" become 

 "Monsoons": the aerial pressure describes from winter to summer a 

 regularly inflected hollow curve ; whilst the aqueous vapour inversely 

 increases its tension ; and the temperature attains its maximum before 

 the sun has reached its greatest altitude*. 



* See in illustration the annual variations in the plate of the "Report on the 

 Meteorology of Bombay " in the British Association volume for 1845. 



