1881.] 



President 's Address. 



Gl 



connexion to be of the same kind as that known to exist in the case 

 of the shifting areas of high or low pressure, and high or low tempera- 

 ture, which determine the changes of weather. M. Leon Teisserenc 

 de Bort, in Paris, has also investigated the same subject. 



The Meteorological Office has completed during the year two works 

 of some interest, which are now ready for immediate publication. The 

 first consists of tables of the Rainfall of the British Isles, prepared at 

 the request of the Council of the Office by Mr. G. J. Symons, F.R.S. 

 These tables include the monthly results recorded at 367 stations in 

 the United Kingdom, being all those for which it was possible to 

 obtain series of observations maintained continuously during the last 

 fifteen years. The second is a volume of charts (with an intro- 

 duction and explanations) illustrating the meteorology of an ocean 

 district specially important to seamen — that adjacent to the Cape 01 

 Good Hope. Some points of novelty are presented by the charts. 

 For example, anew form of "wind-rose," invented by Mr. F. Galton, 

 F.R.S., has been employed, which offers some theoretical advantages 

 over those previously in use, being intended to represent, with geome- 

 trical precision, the probability (deduced from the observations) that, 

 in a particular place and at a particular season, a wind blowing 

 between any two given points of the compass will be experienced. 

 Again, for the first time in marine meteorology, the wind observa- 

 tions have been "weighted" with the view of neutralising the 

 tendency to over-estimate the frequency of adverse winds, which has 

 been found to affect meteorological charts injuriously. The work 

 brings into clear relief the most interesting physical feature of the 

 district — one indeed already well known — the intermingling of hot 

 and cold water, brought by the Agulhas and the South Polar currents 

 respectively, and supplies strong evidence for the belief that this inter- 

 mingliug has a large share in producing the atmospheric disturbances 

 so common in the region in which it occurs. 



In my Address to the Society in 1879, I stated that an Inter- 

 national Conference of a semi-official character had been held, with 

 the view of establishing for one complete year a circle of meteoro- 

 logical observations round the Arctic regions of the globe. Notwith- 

 standing the lamented death of Lieutenant Weyprecht, the gallant 

 young discoverer of Franz Josef's Land, by whom the proposal had 

 been originated, it would seem that the efforts of the Conference are 

 likely to be crowned with success. The following stations have 

 already been undertaken by different Governments : Point Barrow 

 and Lady Franklin's Bay in Smith's Sound, by the United States ; 

 West Greenland, by Denmark ; Jan Mayen, by Austria ; Mossel Bay 

 and Spitsbergen, by Sweden ; Bossekop, by Norway ; Nova Zembla, 

 by Holland ; the Mouths of the Lena, by Russia. The Conference 

 has also been led to hope that the Canadian Government may re- 



