1866.] General Sabine — Note on Meteorological Correspondence, 31 



blishments of tbe principal States of Europe. Lieutenant Maury's memoir 

 is dated November 6, 1852. 



" I would recommend that the United States should abandon, for the 

 present at least, that part of the * Universal System ' which relates to the 

 Land, and that we should direct our efforts mainly to the Sea, where there 



is such a rich harvest to be gathered for navigation and commerce I 



am induced to make this recommendation in consequence of the evident 

 reluctance with which Russia, Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and other powers 

 seem to regard any change in their systems of meteorological observations 



on shore Each country seems to have adopted a system of its own, 



according to which its labourers have been accustomed to work, and to 

 which its meteorologists are more or less partial. Any proposition having 

 in view for these systems a change so radical as to bring them to uniformity, 

 and reduce them to one for all the world, would, I have reason to believe, 



be regarded with more or less jealousy by many Not so, however, 



with regard to the Sea; that proposal meets with decided favour and 

 warmest support." 



Lieutenant Maury then quotes largely from the Report of the President 

 and Council of the Royal Society (already referred to), and from the anni- 

 versary address of the President of the British Association at the Belfast 

 Meeting in 1852, in illustration of the advantages which navigation and 

 commerce may derive from the extension of maritime researches by the 

 proposed cooperation of Great Britain and the United States. 



In June 1854 the Board of Trade informed the President and Council 

 by letter that they were about to submit to Parliament an estimate for an 

 office for the discussion of observations on Meteorology to be made at Sea 

 in all parts of the globe, in conformity with the recommendation of a con- 

 ference held at Brussels in the preceding year ; and that it was their inten- 

 tion to publish from time to time, and to circulate, such statistical results, 

 obtained by means of the observations referred to, as might be considered 

 most desirable by men versed in the science of meteorology, in addition to 

 such other information as might be required for the purposes of navigation. 

 To this end, the Board of Trade were desirous of obtaining the opinion of 

 the Royal Society as to what were the great desiderata in that science, and 

 as to the forms which may be best calculated to exhibit the great atmo- 

 spheric laws which it may be most desirable to develope. 



The Board further stated that, as it may possibly happen that obser- 

 vations on land upon an extended scale may hereafter be made and dis- 

 cussed in the same office, it is desirable that the reply of the Royal Society 

 should keep in view and provide for such a contingency." 



In their reply to this communication, dated February 22, 1855, the 

 President and Council kept carefully in view the relative importance which 

 the Board of Trade attached to the suggestions which might be offered 



