American Meteorological Observations

Abstract

IN your valued journal (vol. xxiv. p. 16) I find an expression of your regret that it should have been decided that the printing of the Bulletin of Simultaneous Meteorological Observations should hereafter take place one year after date, instead of six months. It may be interesting to those of your readers who made use of the Bulletin in studying the general atmospheric phenomena of the northern hemisphere, to know that for several years past the data for several distant land stations in Greenland, Iceland, Siberia, Alaska, &c, have been omitted, merely because the mail facilities did not enable us to receive the reports in time for publication in the Bulletin. Thus a large portion of the region covered by our maps has been left unrepresented, for which the necessary data come regularly to hand a few weeks or months later. The case is still worse in reference to the marine reports for vessels off on long voyages; for instance, we regularly pay for and receive a large collection of material from the London Meteorological Office that never appears in our published Bulletin or charts. The proposed postponement of publication is in fact merely the outcome of several suggestions and recommendations from co-operating nations, in the propriety of which recommendations myself and assistants fully concur.