The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-05-10 00:00:00

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SATURDAY, INIAN 10th, 1884.

METEOROLOGY.

The advance made in the development of
science during the reign of Queen Victoria
his often been the subject of pardonable pride
daring the past half century. For it is
eery nearly fifty. years since the fine June
morning when the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and the Lord Chamberlain of that day
left the death-clamber of the deceased King
at Windsor Castle, and travelled by coach to
Kensington Palace, London and there saluted
the Princess Victoria, who was then residing
with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, as
Queen of England. That One simple fact
of the two dignitaries having to travel by
road shows the immense difference between
now and then so far as the means of locomo-
tion are concerned. The wonders of the
electric telegraph, totally unknowa then,
have ceased to be marvels now. The sciences
0; physics and geology, of medicine and jur-
isprudence, with all the other sciences which
have their eminent exponents, together
with the work of geographical research and
discovery, have mado astonishing progress
during the present reign. More has been
concenerated into it than into any other
similar period of history. There is however
no doubt that one science, which daily and
hourly affects tho.comfort and convenience of
these who transact thepusiness of the won l d
and enjoy its pleasures, is yet in its infancy.
Various efforts have been made during the
past quarter of a century to ascertain more
of the conditions which govern the science
of meteorology. The late Admiral Fitzroy
superintended a system of observations by
which, collecting weather statistics and in-
formation from various points, he was enabled
to some extent to forecast the state of the
weather for the next few hours and to issue
warnings to our
.seaports accordingly. The
gallant officer has been dead nearly twenty
years,and it cannot be said that the soience
ofjneteorolegy has much advanced in that
time. There is a department of the Board
of Trade especially devoted to it, which in-
forms the public from day to day of the de-
pressions coming towards our shores from
the Atlantic and sends out, from the know-
ledge which it has gathered from different
parts, anticipations of that day's weather
over the various districts of the British Isles
and the Channel, into which, for convenience
the lands and seas of England are divided.
These vaticinations are as a rule worded with
great care, so as not to commit the writer too
deeply to any specific view. They are often
correct in many particulars, and are some-
times wrong. There is little doubt that the sea-
;mini, population of the coasts do not pay so
much attention to these as they ought,
They attach more importance to one failure
than they should do, and are too much dis-
posed to lose sight of the preponderance of
successes. _

Contrasting meteorological science with
that of astronomy, we are conflonted with
the fact that those who study the heavens
are a great deal ahead of those who devote
their attention to things on earth. Galileo,
Copernicus, Sir Isaac Newton, and Sir John
Herschel are amongst the devotees of the
science of the stars; and their names-will
live in imperishable fame. The places at
at which the transit of Venus may be seen,
the second at which it will begin, and the
moment at which it will end, can be deter
mined centuries beforehand. So also can
the eclipses either of the sun or of the moon,
the occulations of the stars, the movements
of Orion, the Great Bear, and the Pleiades.
The almanacks actually publish the posi-
tions of the satellites of Jupiter, which can
be determined with as much nicety as those
of our own nocturnal attendant. Or to come
nearer to the earth even than the moon, the
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beforehand with precision and exactitude.
It is only when our learned men come to the
weather that they seem at a loss. "The
wind bloweth where it listeth ;ye hear the
sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it
cometh, or wither it goeth." With the truth
of this we are brought acquainted every day
of our lives. An astronomer can tell when
a comet will be pursuing its erratic career
near unto our globe hundred of years hence,
and can estimate the. amount of sunlight re-
ceived by the planet farthest from the great
luminary of the day. But the devotee of
the science of meteorology, who, perchance,
has arranged for a garden party to-morrow,
is not sure that it may not be utterly spoiled
by one of those unexpected rainstorms which
so often burst upon these islands. Could
we have certain weather predictions even
for a week, what a different life it would be
to be actually sure when to go out unpro-
vided with an umbrella, and to be able to
make open-air engagements without lear of
a drenching! But this is not yet. The
time will no cloubt come when there will be
professors of meteorology as well as pro-
fessors of astronomy; but the accuracy of
prediction which characterises the one can-
not be expected to attend the other. Pro-
gress will no doubt be made, but it will take
a lone, time for meteorology to produce a
Newton or a Herschel.