1888 - 89 .] 
Chairman's Opening Address. 
9 
require for the carrying of it out a small additional staff, working 
in conjunction with the office in Edinburgh and the staff of the 
Ben Nevus Observatory, for a period of at least three years. 
In connection with the practical side of the inquiry, the 
Directors refer with the greatest satisfaction to the publication, by 
General Greely, Chief Signal-Officer of the United States Army, of 
daily Weather Charts of the Atlantic, beginning with October 1886. 
These charts have been partially examined in connection with the 
Ben Nevis Observations, and it is not possible to over-estimate their 
importance in the large inquiry now in contemplation by the 
Directors as to the relations of these observations to the weather of 
North-Western Europe, which is truly an international undertaking. 
With the United States charts will be conjoined the observations of 
storms and other phenomena made at the Scottish lighthouses, as 
described in previous reports, and the bi-daily charts of the Meteor- 
ological Office. One of the points to which attention will be 
specially given will be to ascertain the earliest time at which storms, 
seen to be advancing over the Atlantic towards Europe, could be 
signalled from the Ben Nevis observations in combination with 
observations at lower levels; and further, to endeavour from an 
investigation of the bearings of Ben Nevis observations on the 
movements and courses of anticyclones, to ascertain the path the 
advancing cyclone will take, whether to the north of, across, or to 
the south of the British Islands in its easterly course. 
The Directors have from the commencement insisted on the 
necessity of an observatory at Eort William, near sea-level, at which 
hourly observations can be recorded, in order that the observations 
made at the top of Ben Nevis shall be properly utilised in their 
scientific and practical bearings. 
It is especially satisfactory to note that the Meteorological 
Council have granted £250 towards the maintenance of the low- 
level observatory, and that the Committee of the Edinburgh Inter- 
national Exhibition of 1886 have dedicated £1000 of the surplus 
funds to this important object. Is it too much to expect that some 
of the surplus of the magnificent Glasgow Exhibition, on the 
success of which we can so cordially congratulate the City of the 
West, may, by favourable meteorological influence, be wafted to 
Fort William ? 
