Abstract
AT the annual meeting of this Society the Report of the Council stated that thirty-eight new members had been added to the Society during the year, and the membership now numbered 698. A new station had been established on the island of Fidra, at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and that observations had been made for the Society at San Gorge, Central Uruguay. A large number of naturalists and others had availed themselves of the facilities for research offered by the Scottish Marine Station during the summer, there being thirteen working at the laboratories at the present time. Communications were now going on between the Council and several influential gentlemen in Glasgow, which it was hoped would result in the establishment of a permanent station for marine research on the Clyde. Mr. H. N. Dickson, of the Marine Station, communicated the results of experiments and observations which, during the past two months, he had been conducting at Granton, with the view of collecting data from which to determine the corrections to be applied to the readings of thermometers exposed in the ordinary Stevenson screen, in use in many places over the world. Having referred to the errors to which the ordinary screen gives rise, consequent on the varying atmospheric motion and radiation, he proceeded to say that his investigation was carried on chiefly by means of improved screens designed by Mr. John Aitken of Darroch, and that the dew points from the dry and “wet bulbs by Glaisher's tables had been compared with those given by a new form of hygrometer designed by Prof. Chrystal of Edinburgh University. As regards Mr. Aitken's screen, in some a fan was introduced in order to secure a proper and uniform circulation of air for the thermometers in all weathers; others were simply sunshades; one consisted of two thermometers, one of which was partially blackened; and another of a thermometer having its bulb inclosed in a tight-fitting silver sheath, highly polished. The construction of Prof. Chrystal's hygrometer was explained and a brief account given of the results either already arrived at or suggested during the investigation, and it was intimated the inquiry was to be resumed at the Ben Nevis Observatory during August and September. At this Observatory, the climate of which offers unique facilities for the prosecution of such inquiries, an instrument of novel construction would be added, which had been designed by Prof. Tait for hygrometric research. Prof. Ewing, of Dundee, then described the arrangements which had been made for commencing the proposed earthquake observations on Ben Nevis this summer. The investigation was to include earthquakes proper; earth movements of so very delicate a kind as to be totally indistinguishable without some form of instrumental assistance, which are conveniently called earth tremors; and there were what might be named changes of the vertical, or those tiltings which the earth's surface seemed to be constantly undergoing. The different seismometers to be employed at the Observatory were then described, and in illustration some of the more striking peculiarities of the earthquakes of Japan were referred to.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
The Scottish Meteorological Society . Nature 32, 636–637 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/032636c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/032636c0