396 
CORRES? CONVEY ea 
——_——_—. 
THE PRESENT STATE OF METEOROLOGY. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TECHNOLOGIST. 
Sir,—No progress whatever has been made in the most 
important department of meteorology—viz, foretelling 
weather, notwithstanding the industry displayed by meteo- 
rologists in making and recording “ observations,” and this 
want of progress is in consequence of, as the late Admiral 
Fitzroy said, “too little attention having been i to 
practical results.” 
That the state of meteorology is discreditable to 
the present age, is a fact admitted and lamented by all. 
Other sciences have made rapid and vast improvement, 
but meteorology is still in its infancy. The laws regulating 
atmospheric changes and disturbance are as far from being 
discovered as they were when the earliest observations 
were made. Whyis this? I believe that it is because due 
consideration has not been given to the coczcidences of atmo- 
spheric with astronomic phenomena. 
To give your readers an insight into the present state of 
meteorology, it will be necessary to quote several passages 
of the report in question. But I desire it to be understood 
that in so doing, I do not wish to detract from the just 
esteem in which the memory of the late Admiral Fitzroy 
is held. With the means at his command—which were 
very inadequate to the objects he sought to attain—the 
late Admiral did all that it was possible fora scientific man 
to do in his position, and moreover, he sacrificed his life in 
the cause he espoused. He sought no selfish ends, but 
ever the advancement of science. 
It appears from the report of the committee that in con- 
sequence of a resolution passed by the British Association 
and communicated to the Board of Trade in December, 
1859, and also of an invitation from M. Le Verrier, 
Director of the Imperial Observatory at Paris, to the 
British Government to join in his system of telegraphing 
the state of the weather daily from port to port in France, 
and from other ports of Europe, “arrangements were made 
during the summer of 1860 for the regular daily communi- 
cation by telegraph to London of the state of the weather 
at fifteen stations in the United Kingdom, for receiving 
telegrams of weather from various places in Europe through 
