Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/97

Rh He has first to obtain with great expenditure of time or money, or both, copies of the individual observations taken at some recognized institution. He has next to reduce these in the way that suits his inquiry; an operation again consuming time and demanding means. Let us suppose all this to be successfully accomplished, and a valuable result obtained. It is doubtless embodied in the transactions of some society, but it excites little enthusiasm, for it consists of something which cannot be repeated by every one for himself like a new and interesting experiment. Yet the position of such men has recently been improved. Several observatories and other institutions now publish their individual observations; this is done by our Meteorological Office, while Dr. Bergsma, Dr. Neumayer, and Mr. Broun, are recent examples of magneticians who have adopted this plan. The publication of the work of the latter is due to the enlightened patronage of the Rajah of Travancore, who has thus placed himself in front of the princes of India, and given. them an example which it is to be hoped they will follow. But this is only one step in the right direction; another must consist in subsidizing private meteorologists and magneticians in order to enable them to obtain the aid of computers in reducing the observations with which they have been furnished. The man of science would thus be able to devote his knowledge, derived from long study, to the methods by which results and the laws regulating them are to be obtained; he could be the architect and builder of a scientific structure without being forced to waste his energies on the work of a hodman.

Another hindrance consists in our deficient knowledge as to what observations of value in magnetism and meteorology have already been made. We ought to have an exhaustive catalogue of all that has been done in this respect in our globe, and of the conditions under which the various observations will be accessible to outside inquirers. A catalogue of this kind has been framed by a committee of this Association, but it is confined to the dominions of England, and requires to be supplemented by a list of that which has been done abroad.

A third drawback is the insufficient nature of the present facilities for the invention and improvement of instruments, and for their verification.

We have, no doubt, advanced greatly in the construction of instruments, especially in those which are self-recording. The names of Brooke, Robinson, Welsh, Osier, and Beckley, will occur to us all as improvers of our instruments of observation. Sir W. Thomson has likewise adapted his electrometer to the wants of meteorology. Dr. Roscoe has given us a self-recording actinometer, but a good instrument for observing the sun's heat is still a desideratum. It ought likewise to be borne in mind that the standard mercurial thermometer is by no means a perfect instrument.

In conclusion, it cannot be doubted that a great generalization is