Weather Watchers and their Work.
The Observatory at Kew.
O old and young, to rich and poor, to the invalid and to the most robust, to the worker and to the pleasure-seeker, the weather is a source of perennial interest. It means so much to every one of us: to our spirits, our tempers, our energies. In some way or other ninety-nine out of every hundred individuals are personally concerned in the response which nature will give to the daily query, "Will it rain?" In the stately entrance halls of the houses of the wealthy, and in the humble abode of the peasant, we shall usually find some proof of the ever-present desire to know what is going to happen meteorologically. In the first case, the rise or fall of the barometer is looked to; in the second, the relative positions of the man and woman in the old Dutch weather-gauge, or the dryness or dampness of the seaweed brought home after some recent holiday, afford an indication of the disposition of the Clerk of the Weather. As a rule, once of the first items turned to in the morning newspaper is the report and forecast issued by the Meteorological Office. One can imagine, for instance, how eagerly the unfortunate agriculturist in the dreary summer months of 1891 has sought to know the best or worst likely to befall his crops. Farmers are said to be especially fond of forecasts, and one of their number is credited with the assertion that they are a good thing, because if they promise fine weather, although they turn out to be wrong, they at least keep up one's spirits, and give one hopes of better times.
The Clerk of the Weather, as Mr. R. H. Scott, the Chief of the Meteorological Office, is often called, is to be found in Victoria-street, S.W. The Meteorological Office is the centre to which observations taken at some eighty different stations throughout the country come three times daily. In the doorway charts containing the latest observations arc posted at 9 a.m., 11 a.m., and 2 p.m., whilst beneath the windows on the first floor the casual passer-by will notice boards which describe the state of the wind and weather at various places on the coasts of Ireland and England. The duty of the office is to secure for the benefit of the public a more or less complete record of the vagaries of nature. Whatever the mood of the great goddess, the meteorologist notes it down. He watches her at peace and at war, and enters up the number of her smiles and the intensity of her
