The Express.
London, England, 1862-04-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16.

Tee labours of the gallant and realocui officer
who presides so ably over the Meteorological De-
portment of the Board of Trade are the subject of
not • little jealous criticism among fussy people,
who are for ever tapping the barometer, and
wondering how it is that the rain keeps coming
down while the glass goes up. These helpless
chroniclers of wet and dry are rejoiced whenever
they find a flaw in the tables of the new " weather
" prophet." For it is the misfortune of all pioneers
in science that they are apt to be confounded with
quacks. The multitude will sooner put their faith
in a charlatan who stakes his reputation on a
single happy hit, than in • man of science, who
laboriously and humbly applies his acquired know-
ledge to the calculation of probabilities according to
defined general principles ; accumulating, controll-
ing, and classifying his data, and building up a
large induction on a basis of experiment. No
doubt it is much easier to believe in a man who
tells you he can see through • millstone,
than in a man who merely uses the spectacles of
science to discover and to grasp the order of
natural laws. So if Admiral FITZROY " forecasts"
a strong wind, or rain, for the day after to.mor-
row, and in some inland town it neither blows
nor pours on the day named, the " forecasting "
system is pronounced • delusion. But should •
second Mr. MURPHY predict • long frost for next
winter, and a frost in due time sets in, the pro-
phet is bought up at his own price, and maks* a
rich harvest before ho blunders into obscurity
_ _ _

again. The gallant chief of the Meteorolo_
Department, however, is the last man in the world
to complain of hasty or partial judgments of his
system. On the contrary, he invites at.d welcomes
all mannerof independentobservations. The science
itself is in the initial stage ; its operations are
purely tentative and exploring. All this is so
clearly and frankly est forth in Admiral FITZROY'S
Report, that the most captious critic can have no
pound for complaint of the insufficiency of prac-
tical multi. This Report, by-the-by, is a model
for all public offices to copy ; so full of information
which he who rims may reed, so compact and ex•
haustive in the method of its elucidations. The De-
partment itself, indeed, is a model to all others in
the economy of its management and the superiority
of its working staff. If the country got half as
ninth for its money out of some other depart
ments of the State, the occupation of financial
reformers would be gone !
It was not, however, to "forecast" the weather
for idlers ashore that Admiral FITZROY'S Depart-
ment was constituted two years since ; though,
as the gallant Admiral well remarks, such cau-
tionary notices may be often useful as well as
interesting to persons who are going to sea, or
on a journey or a mere excursion, or " those who
" have gardening, agricultural, or other outdoor
" pursuits in view." The great public and na-
tional value of this Department consists in the
orgmizAtion of a system of " meteorological tek •
" graphy " along the coasts of our islands, com-
municating by means of signal drums notice of
the approach of violent weather. For some tine
these signals were held in no account by our coasters
and fishermen. How should men born and bred to
a calling besot with perils and uncertainties, be
dissuaded by the cautionary notice of " a gale
" expected" from putting to sea with a leading
wind and smooth water ? That the Department
should have succeeded in making its warnings ac-
ceptable to our coast population is a rue result
of skill and determination. Nor can it be a
trifling satisfaction to the gallant Admiral to feel
that he has already saved hundreds of brave and
precious lives. This is, in truth, the divine side of
science—this enlightened service rendered to
humanity ; and we know Do class of public expen-
diture which should more readily approve itatili to
the conwienee of the House of Commons than the
which has hitherto been the maximum of

the " Meteorological Vote." The Department of
Telegraphy maintains an unbroken chain of commu-
nication with twenty home stations, and, through
l'aris, with six on the continental coasts. The
co-operatoin of the Coast-guard, by order of the
Admiralty, esti. tele the system of cautionary
warnings t' some eighty places besides the
fifty previously in communication. The weather
forecasts are daily published in the jour-
nals and supplied to the principal Under-
writers aveiciltiona. Foreign governments have
applied to the Dopartment for information as to
the workiio4 of the "cautionary" system. It
seems in scr.r.lance with the fitness of things that
the greatest maritime Power in the world should
have invented a system so bold in conception, so
accurate and exact in the means of execution.
All his countrymen will participate in the honest
pride which Admiral Frrxitiiv expresses at the de-
dication of the last and best work of the most
eminent continental meteorologist to the chief of
the Department in England.