Notes

Abstract

IN accordance with the resolution come to at the recent International Congress of Meteorology, the International Committee have issued circulars for a special Conference at the Deutsche Seewarte at Hamburg, on October 1, to consider the scheme of Count Wilczek and Lieut. Weyprecht for the establishment of circumpolar observing stations. The Conference will consider specially the following points:—1. The number of observatories and the most convenient places at which to establish them. The decision will depend on the number of co-operating states and the sumswhich they are willing to devote to this purpose. Count Wilczek and Lieut. Weyprecht have proposed the following places:—In the Northern Hemisphere: north coasts of Spitzbergen and of Novaya Zemlya, the neighbourhood of the North Cape, the mouth of the Lena, New Siberia, Point Barrow, on the north-east of Behring Strait, west coast of Greenland, east coast of Greenland, about 75° N. lat. In the Southern Hemisphere: the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, Kerguelen or Macdonald Islands, one of the groups south of the Auckland Islands. 2. There will be considered the exact epoch of the observations and their maximum duration. 3. Uniform instruction for observations, which will have to fix especially: (a) The minimum of elements to be observed at each station, both for meteorological phenomena and for those of terrestrial magnetism, as well as for other phenomena of terrestrial physics connected with them. (b) The minimum number of daily observations for the different elements. (c) The first meridian which will serve as basis for simultaneous observations, (d) Methods of observation for the different elements and methods of reduction, (e) Instruments of observation and their arrangement, as far as they may influence the comparability of the results.