16 Scientific Progress of the Past Year. [January, 
furnish a point d'appui for common aCtion, and to facilitate, 
during the intervals between the Congresses, a. personal 
interchange of opinions among the authorities directing the 
different systems. 
A great number of valuable reports, on questions em- 
bracing nearly the whole field of Meteorology, were received 
by the Roman Congress. Among them, special mention 
may be made of the reports by M. Violle on Solar Radia- 
tion ; by M. Pernet, on the Determination of the Fixed 
Points of Thermometers ; and by Prof. Everett, on Atmo- 
spheric Electricity. 
A Conference of a semi-official character, which was ori- 
ginated by the Congress at Rome, was held at Hamburg in 
the beginning of October, for the purpose of taking into 
consideration a proposal, emanating from Lieut. Weyprecht 
and Count Wilczek, to establish for one complete year a 
circle of meteorological observations round the ArCtic regions 
of the globe. The Conference was attended by representa- 
tives of the Meteorological Institutes of Austria, France, 
Germany, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries ; and it 
was agreed that an effort should be made to establish the 
proposed circumpolar system of meteorological and physical 
observations in the year 1881. Some part at all events of 
this plan will, in all probability, be carried into effeCt, as 
the Canadian Government has intimated its readiness to 
co-operate in it, and as Count Wilczek has offered himself 
to defray the cost of an Observatory at Nova Zembla. 
The unfavourable weather which has characterised the 
present year has given an additional impulse to the study of 
English Meteorology : and our own Meteorological Office 
has ventured to resume the issue of Daily Forecasts of 
Weather, after they had been discontinued for nearly thir- 
teen years. The attempt has been made under somewhat 
adverse circumstances, as the uncertainty of the weather of 
1879 has even surpassed the proverbial fickleness of the 
British climate. But the experiment has been liberally 
supported by the Press, and has been watched with great 
interest by the public generally. Of its success or failure 
it would as yet be premature to speak, but it deserves recog- 
nition as a serious attempt to apply to one of the most un- 
certain of the sciences the severe test of prediction. 
Transit of Venus (1874) Reductions . — The calculations of 
every kind relating to the five British Expeditions were 
some time ago concluded. The mass of them refers to the 
determinations of terrestrial longitudes and the discussion 
of the measurements of photographs. The preparation of 
7 
