Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/145

 Rh consist of the chief, the meteorologists, the assistants and the clerks. The chief and meteorologists are appointed with His Majesty's approval, and the assistants by the governor of the prefecture. Stations are inspected about once every three or four years by the staff of the Central Meteorological Observatory.

The Central Meteorological Observatory of Japan, which is situated at Tokyo, is the center of our meteorological service. Most of the important investigations are conducted by its staff either at this observatory or elsewhere. It is organized into four divisions: (1) cabinet of the director, (2) service of predictions, (3) service of observations and (4) service of statistics. The present director of the observatory is Professor K. Nakamura, D.Sc, a former student of Professor von Bezold at Berlin. The service of predictions has been for the last twenty-five years in the most able and experienced hands of Professor Y. Wada, who is now completing the organization of the similar meteorological service in Korea and Manchuria. Dr. T. Okada now succeeds Professor Wada as the chief of the service of predictions and Dr. W. Oishi is chief of the service of observations at the Central Meteorological Observatory.

The instrumental equipment of this observatory is so complete that it may well be called a meteorological laboratory. Here one can execute meteorological research in barometry, thermometry, hygrometry, nephoscopy, pluviometry, anemometry, actinometry and other lines. There are various instruments and apparatus for verifying the meteorological instruments that are to be distributed to all stations or elsewhere. The observatory also undertakes observations on seismic, magnetic and electrical phenomena. For seismometry, there are the Gray-Milne seismograph, the Ewing seismograph, Tanakadaté's seismograph, the Milne horizontal pendulum, the Omori pendulum. Seismic observation and study form an important feature in the meteorological service of Japan. Each station is equipped with a set of seismographs. Professor F. Omori, of the Tokyo Imperial University, is most active in seismological research, backed by the Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee, which is composed of such eminent men as Baron Kikuchi and Professor Tanakadaté. For further information along this line of work, the reader should consult Baron Kikuchi's monograph, 'Recent Seismological Investigations in Japan,' which was originally prepared as an address to the International Congress of Arts and Science (in 1904) at St. Louis. For the measurement of atmospheric electricity, there are used at the Central Observatory Exner's portable electrometer, Mascart's self-registering electrometer, Kelvin's collector, etc. The hourly values of electric potential are published in the annual reports.

The periodic publications of the Central Meteorological Observatory are the daily weather-map, the monthly report, the annual report and the monthly weather review. In addition to these, the Bulletin of the