179 
time to prevent the sailing of these vessels. In fact, 
without the aid of telegrams from distant stations, its 
approach was confidently announced in Manchester so 
early as the evening of Monday the 8th of April, and the 
direction in which the wind would blow during the most 
violent period of the storm was also stated at the same 
time. The grounds of this prediction were explained, and 
it was shown that even if the rules of meteorology were 
not yet established “on a strictly scientific basis,” the plea put 
forward by the President and Council of the Eoyal Society 
for discontinuing storm signals could only be regarded 
as frivolous. It is understood that the expense of the 
Meteorological Department, under the new management, 
is now more than double the amount it cost under the 
management of the late Admiral Fitzroy, and yet the 
most important and practically useful portion of its duties, 
and that which involved the greatest current expense, 
has been given up; and while even the Scientific Com- 
mittee cannot deny that our present knowledge of the 
laws of meteorological phenomena affords us the means of 
saving immense amounts of valuable property and many 
valuable lives, yet this committee has nevertheless presumed 
to deprive the public of the advantages to be derived from 
this knowledge, and has not hesitated to divert the funds 
which have hitherto been so usefully applied in the interests 
of commerce and humanity, to the furtherance of schemes 
and scientific crotchets which are altogether uncalled for by 
the requirements of meteorological science, and which, 
however interesting and important they may be to the 
parties immediately concerned, have certainly no interest 
whatever for the general public. Surely this is a state of 
things which calls for the interference of those who are 
charged with the power and responsibility of controlling 
the expenditure of the public money. 
