72
Desima by Pompe van Meerdervoort, comprises the years 1857–1862, and was published at Desima in 1862.
Out of these three series a very valuable review was made by J. van Gogh, Captain R. N. Navy, and published in the Annals of the Royal Academy of Amsterdam and also in the Annals of the Meteorological Institute of Utrecht, for the year 1866, (Overzicht van de heerschènde winden en daarby waargenomen barometerstanden te Nagasaki).
In 1871 I received the necessary instruments for instituting meteorological observations and of these I erected a station at the (Japanese Government) medical school of Nagasaki, and commenced my journal on the 1st November of that year. I have now the honour to present to the Asiatic Society a series of observations for two months during 1871 and for the whole of the year 1872, and these will be followed in a short time, by the results for 1873. Although my journal has been kept according to the rules of the international congress for meteorology in millimeters and centigrade degrees, I have thought it advisable to send to the Society the results reduced to English inches and Fahrenheit degrees, because it is still a fact, although very much to be regretted, that the scientific metric system and the centigrade thermometer have found up to the present time but few adherents among the public of England and America.
Before speaking of my observations, I may here mention, the desirability that other observers in Japan should keep their journals according to the rules of the Congress held last year at Vienna under the presidency of Professor Buys Ballot of Utrecht. At the next Congress of international meteorologists which will be held in Utrecht in the month of September of this year, deliberation on many other points will be held having the object of promoting unity in observing and registering.
I am indebted to my learned friend Professor Buys Ballot for the communication of the process-verbal of the Congress, and will mention here the general rules adopted by the permanent Committee, for the sake of other
