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at all, it must be for scientific men. It is rarely that we find that those well, but not exclusively, versed in the physical sciences fall dupes to the enormous impostures which we see every day prostrating the ill-trained intellects of fashionable society. Before the simple scientific rebuke of Faraday, table-turning fell dead at once. In every circle we find a scientific man, and that scientific man generally raising his voice against the delusions which, like swallows at the coming of spring, seem to be thronging of late years upon us.

The conclusion we draw from this fact is that, in any new scheme of education which may be promulgated for the benefit of the people, and for the especial punishment of quacks of all kinds-witches, spirit-rappers, and magicmirror workers included a large share of physical science should be insisted upon. It is wonderful how ghosts and spirits of all kinds disappear when tried by any chemical test, and what a sore trial the inductive philosophy is to all mysticism whatsoever, and especially to that feeblest of all mysticism which exerts such an influence over the many feeble brains" moving in society."

THE CLERK OF THE WEATHER.

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It is a very common thing to hear the name of the Clerk of the Weather Office taken in vain. That individual has hitherto been a myth, against whom the objurgations of Englishmen have been levelled time out of mind. If a fine day is desired, a jocular appeal is made to the kind interference of this ideal personage; but, as we well know, the joke of to-day becomes the fact of to-morrow; and it so happens that we can all see and converse with this very myth, Mr. Robert H. Scott, the worthy director of our Meteorological Office, 116, Victoria Street, Westminster. As everybody knows, the late Admiral Fitzroy was formerly at the head of this department of the Board of Trade, and won "golden opinions" from the public by the fame of his storm predictions, until an untimely end brought to a close a career devoted to the service of science and his country— eliciting the following tribute to his memory from the Royal Committee which organized the present method of the office, in 1866-"To the zeal and perseverance of Admiral Fitzroy is due the credit of establishing a system of stormwarnings, which is already highly prized by the seafaring class. And if a more scientific method should hereafter succeed in placing the practice of foretelling weather on a clear and certain basis, it will not be forgotten that it was Admiral Fitzroy who gave the first impulse to this branch of inquiry, who induced men of science and the public to take interest in it, and who sacrificed his life to the cause.”

When we consider that the seafaring population of the globe represents a totality of more than a million of men, in some two hundred thousand vessels, we can form an idea of the importance of the losses caused by storms during

some centuries, and of the immense social and commercial advantage that would result from a perfectly organized system of telegraphic surveillance over the ocean. For a thousand years navigators had submitted to the blind destiny that seemed to have them always at its mercy-just like the Arabs who recognize the lion of the mountains as their master, and concede to him the right of decimating their flocks without resistance. Never, before our time, had it entered into the mind of navigators to struggle, by means of science, against the chances of the winds and the vagaries of the skies. The honour of revolting against this ancient and fatal tyranny has been reserved for our epoch, so fruitful in admirable inventions which have changed the face of the earth. The barometer and the electric telegraph have, so to speak, vanquished the storm. Like the faithful Eckart of the German legend, who, in the Black Forest, precedes the train of the infernal chase, and warns stray children, so that they may hide themselves before the arrival of the demon, the electric telegraph flies before the tempest and bids our ships to beware. Woe to those who neglect the salutary warning!

Meteorology is a science that has engaged philosophers for centuries; but it is only since the discovery of the electric telegraph that they have been able to make simultaneously and transmit to head-quarters instantaneously the results of their labours over a wide field of observation. Since this has been done, immense strides have been made, and it is rapidly becoming an exact science. This system was first commenced by the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade in September, 1860. Thus the nation of shopkeepers has been the first to lead the world in a new and most important applied science, which must ultimately save the lives of thousands of sailors and boundless wealth to the merchants. The observers at the out-stations, which are all situated at seaports of the British Island, are the telegraph clerks—a very intelligent set of men. The Board of Trade furnishes them with every requisite meteorological instrument, and provides a manual of instruction for their use. In this manner a staff of skilled observers is being drilled in all our important seafaring places. They are instructed to send reports to the central office in Victoria Street twice a day, at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., and oftener when any great disturbance of their instruments warrants special

notifications to the director. These telegrams give in symbolic figures the condition of the barometer and thermometer, wet and dry; the direction of the wind; the force of the wind; the amount of cloud; the character of the weather, and the sea disturbance. Thus the chief is supplied, in a compact form, with all the leading items of the sum he has to work, from fifty-one stations at home and abroad, and extending from Norway in the north to the Mediterranean in the south.

About two hours are required for their reduction, discussion, and the preparation of the daily weather report, copies of which are ready by about 11 a.m., and are at once supplied for the afternoon issue of several of the London papers. A wind chart for the day is also drawn for the Shipping Gazette; a brief telegraphic summary of the weather is dispatched to the Marine Ministry in Paris, and, if necessary, telegraphic intelligence of storms, or of atmospheric disturbance, is sent to our coasts and to foreign countries. Later in the day, the foreign telegrams, and subsequently the afternoon reports, come in. The daily weather charts, seen in the Times and Standard, are drawn up by noon, and forwarded to the lithographers to be printed. The copies for postal distribution are received at the office at about 3.30 p.m. The total number of copies issued every day is about 530, and they are marvels of accuracy and neatness, without considering the expedition with which they are prepared for the lithographer. Nor is the production of the block of the miniature weather chart as seen in the Times less remarkable. This is printed from a metal block, reduced to one-fourth from the original drawing, by means of an instrument called the pantagraph— a new method of weather-illustration initiated by Mr. Francis Galton.

As the knowledge of circular storms is being gradually perfected, the value of this daily sum worked at headquarters is becoming of the last importance. It is now known that all great hurricanes move in cyclones or ovals in northern latitudes, giving circling winds from left to right, but moving bodily from the south-west towards the northeast. These cyclones are of all sizes, and they move at a rate sufficiently slow to enable warnings of their approach to be given to out-ports some time beforehand. The first wellnoted cyclone was that known as the Royal Charter storm.

This hurricane commenced in the south-west, about the Bay of Biscay, and finally passed off along the coast of Norway, sweeping on its way across this island, and visiting the west, south, east, and northern coasts with gales which boxed the compass within twenty-four hours. The passage of this great storm was most accurately mapped, and its whole course in every particular worked out in the most perfect manner, by Admiral Fitzroy and his staff of observers. We may here remark that although these cyclones are often of very limited area, yet they are due to atmospheric influences possibly thousands of miles away. In the same manner the minute eddies of wind which twist about the autumn leaves or dust in our path may be, and are very often, the result of opposing winds directed by distant hills or other elevations. The eddies in the stream which we note whirling down a river have been brought about by the piers of the bridge creating diverse currents. The present system of warning our out-ports was not established in October, 1859, otherwise that noble ship the Royal Charter could have been warned of the approach of the great circle of wind at least twenty hours before it swept round upon her, as she lay at her fatal place of anchorage on a lee shore; and probably she would have put to sea and been saved.

Our knowledge that all great winds are circular accounts for a phenomenon that puzzled our fathers—namely, that a southerly wind is often very cold. The explanation is, that although the wind may reach us from the south, yet it is in reality a polar wind curved round, or diverted from its course, by opposing currents of air or other causes.

The practical use of these weather-charts, giving as they do a representation of past conditions of weather, will be made evident from the following considerations. Their prominent indications relate to the wind, the barometrical pressure, and the temperature that have prevailed, from all which inferences can be drawn as to the results that will follow. The wind is the atmospherical phenomenon which is most directly related to weather; in fact, it is the wind that makes the weather. Now, the wind is always connected with some disturbances of pressure of the atmosphere-its existence, of course, being due to the tendency of an elastic body, like the air, to regain the condition of equilibrium from which it has by any means been disturbed, whilst its motion, both in direction and velocity, is regulated by the

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