136 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



year. The means and the methods by which the facts thus considerately 

 and systematically obtained may be communicated to the public, in the 

 form which may be at once suitable for the study of the weather pheno- 

 mena over the very limited territorial area of the British Islands — and may 

 at the same time contribute in the most satisfactory manner to the impor- 

 tant investigations which are now in progress on the Continent of Europe 

 regarding the periodic and non-periodic variations — will be the next point 

 to which the careful attention of the Committee will be directed. 



2°. In the branch of ocean meteorology the cooperation of several of 

 our leading oceanic steam companies has been secured; and a large number 

 of the commanders of their vessels are now actively engaged in the work 

 of observing. Instruments have also been supplied to other masters of 

 vessels of our mercantile marine, care being always taken that the reci- 

 pients are both competent to observe and willing to do so regularly and 

 accurately. The zeal and judgment displayed by Captain Henry Toynbee, 

 the Marine Superintendent of the Office, in the selection of observers, has 

 already begun to bear fruit in the marked improvement in the quality of 

 the information in the registers which are now received compared with 

 those which had previously accumulated in the office. The discussion of 

 the material which has been thus collected and is still collecting is in pro- 

 gress; but some time must elapse before a significant portion of the im- 

 mense arrear can be advanced to such a stage as to afford a prospect of its 

 speedy publication. The staff of clerks is already fully occupied ; so that 

 the rate of progress cannot be much accelerated, unless the Committee 

 find themselves in a position to devote more funds to this object than they 

 are at present able to do. The special subject to which the attention of 

 this department of the office has been first directed, is the discussion of 

 information respecting the district of the Atlantic Ocean comprised between 

 the parallels of 20° N. and 10° S., for which region it is in contemplation to 

 ascertain the conditions of atmospheric pressure, temperature, and vapour 

 tension, as well as the direction and force of wind, the character of the 

 weather, and the surface temperature of the sea. These elements will be 

 discussed for spaces of a single square degree in area for the different 

 months. 



As regards the temperature of the surface of the sea (a subject so much 

 dwelt on by the President and Council of the Royal Society in their letter 

 to the Board of Trade of February 22, 1855), a very valuable series of 

 monthly charts has been published by the Eoyal Meteorological Institute 

 of the Netherlands, exhibiting the temperature for each degree of latitude 

 for the North and South Atlantic Oceans, and for the Indian Ocean. The 

 Committee considered that a conversion of the data in these charts into 

 British measures would be likely to be of immediate use to our own marine, 

 and they have accordingly directed that a set of charts should be prepared in 

 the first instance for the South Atlantic Ocean, exhibiting the Dutch results, 

 as well as those obtained from the British registers received by the meteo- 



