Stoney. — On the Reduction of Daily Weather Reports, 253 
for if there was I would not have been puzzled to account for the pre- 
sence of the sand. 
This particular instance I remember very well, on account of cer- 
tain incidents that happened the same day, which I have never 
forgotten. However, to see sand floating is a very common thing in 
India. 
[It seems from Mr. Webber's account that the sand, instead of being 
uplifted by the water, as in the case I observed, was gently detached 
by the current of the Ganges, and floated whenever its fall was not 
sufficient to enable its particles to penetrate through the surface of the 
river. I have floated needles and particles of sand by allowing them 
to drop from a small height on a vessel of water.] 
XXXI. — Ojt the Reduction op Daily Weather Eepokts.— By 
Johnstone Stoney, M. A., F. E. S., &c. 
[Read May 13, 1872.] 
The Meteorological Office has lately begun to issue daily weather 
reports to the public at a nominal price. The observations are taken 
every morning at 8 o'clock at thirty-eight stations which are in tele- 
graphic communication with the centraL office in London. Three of 
these stations are in i^orway, one in Denmark, one in Hanover, one in 
Holland, one in Belgium, eight in France, one in Spain, and the rest 
are distributed round the coasts of the British Isles, from the Orkneys 
in the Ilorth to the Scilly Isles in the South, and from Yarmouth in 
the East to Yalentia in the West. The observations taken at these 
widely- spread stations in the morning are forwarded to London by 
telegraph early in the forenoon, are reduced, tabulated, and mapped 
during the day at the Meteorological Office, are printed off in the 
afternoon, posted in the evening, and are delivered at our houses the 
following morning by the English post. The information thus reaches 
the public so soon, that it is still of interest in its relation to the 
existing weather. In fact a person who consults these reports, and 
who superadds to them the very roughest observation of the pressure, 
temperature, and direction of the wind at his own locality — ^just good 
enough to tell whether the waves of pressure, temperature, &c., are 
still advancing in the same direction from the day before, or have 
begun to retreat — such a person has better materials for forming a 
judicious forecast as to weather, than are within the reach of the most 
laborious meteorologist who spends great time, thought, and trouble in 
making frequent and careful observations at his own station, but who 
has not the prompt information which these weather reports give as to 
the state of affairs elsewhere. 
These daily weather reports are so promptly circulated, so acces- 
sible, and of so much use t(J every one who is interested in the weather 
