BKITISH STORMS. 
179 
BRITISH STOEMS. 
ABSTRACT OF MR. T. W. COFFIn's TAPER. 
(Read February 29tli, 1872.) 
One day with another, according to '<The Wreck Register" for 
1870, there happens every twenty- four hours within ten miles of 
our own shores a collision more or less serious, a total shipwreck, 
and two shipping disasters ; altogether four serious casualties, 
involving on the average the daily loss of two lives. In the year 
1870 — although that year was less disastrous than usual by a 
fourth — the number of wrecks, collisions, &c., amounted to 1502; 
and as every collision involves two or more ships, they represent 
the loss or damage of 1865 vessels, with a registered tonnage of 
404,000 tons, and peril of life to crews numbering 16,348 men 
and boys. On analyzing the records of the past twenty years, and 
dividing them into four periods of five years each, we find that 
during the years 1851-5 the annual average of wrecks was 1068 ; 
in the next five years it had increased to 1252 ; for the next period 
of five years the average was 1538, and finally, during the five 
years which ended in 1870, it amounted to the large average of 
1862 wrecks per annum. One thing, however, was consoling in 
the face of so many painful facts ; viz., that as many as 4654 lives 
were saved last year, many hundreds of them by the lifeboats of 
the JSTational Lifeboat Institution, which has now 230 boats under 
its management, and counts its successes by 800 lives a year, 
or 20,000 since it began its heroic operations. Attention was 
called to some of the less known consequences of the extreme 
changes in the air's pressure and temperature during great storms. 
There appears to be a marked coincidence between the time of the 
greatest atmospheric disturbances and the occurrence of the greatest 
number of fatal accidents from gas in coal mines. Meteorology was 
one of the chief subjects of science for popular study, and although 
considered by some to be complicated and vague, seemed in some 
particulars to approach closely the character of an exact science. 
Its leading feature appeared to be, that in each hemisphere there 
are two great currents of air in incessant motion throughout its 
whole extent — one from the pole to the equator, another from the 
