43 
perfected the lunar theory. The laws relating to the 
strength of materials were long in a very unsatisfactory state ; 
but scientific men did not urge that, therefore, we ought 
to suspend building and engineering operations until these 
laws had been established on a strictly scientific basis. It 
is needless, however, to multiply illustrations to show the 
unsoundness of the principle on which the recommendation 
is based; and it requires but a moderate acquaintance 
with scientific methods to see that in a science which aims 
at prediction, its progress will be best and most surely 
advanced by a continuous and systematic comparison of the 
phenomena as they actually occur with the phenomena as 
predicted. It is in this way that the methods of astronomy 
have attained their present high degree of perfection; and 
it will be obvious, on a little consideration, that, if Mr. 
Babington’s predictions or forecasts of the weather are 
regulary and systematically compared with the phenomena 
which actually occur, many points of considerable interest 
will doubtless often be brought under immediate notice 
which might otherwise long escape detection, and in this 
way an impetus will be given to the progress of the science 
which could not be applied in any other way, or by any 
other means. 
In the circular issued by the Board of Trade it is stated 
that the President and Council of the Royal Society think 
that “ in a few years the rules on which storm warnings are 
founded may probably be much improved by deductions 
from the observations in land meteorology, which will by 
that time have been collected and studied.” Now, this 
allusion to land meteorology refers, no doubt, to a recom- 
mendation made in a letter addressed by the President of 
the Royal Society to Mr. Farrer, one of the Secretaries of 
the Board of Trade, on the 15th June, 1865. Mr. Farrer 
had informed the President “ that the Admiralty were will- 
ing to undertake, and to place in the hands of their Hydro- 
