OCEAN CURRENTS AND THE WEATHER.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 11790, 13 January 1904, Page 8

OCEAN CURRENTS AND THE WEATHER.

PROFESSOR GREGORY'S ADDREoo. Professor Gregory, F.R.S., of Melbourne, in tlie course of a lecture before the Science Congress on Monday, on "The Southern Ooean and its Climatic Control over Australasia," said: — "The excellent work accomplished by the authorities on the Valdivia and Challenger, and the researches carried on by them, served to establish the depth of the ocean's bed in the far South, and the trend.of the currents." Speaking of currents, he eaid they varied at different periods of the year, and it was now pretty well established that they varied from one year to another, and that they flowed on different lines in different years, and there was every reason to believe that these irregular movements of the sea were the main cause of the irregular variations of the seasons on land. The grail of meteorology was ft key to the succession of good and bad seasons. The highest aim of meteorology was to determine whether there was any regular succession of wet and dry periods, and, if there be, to discover the law that regulated them. A belief in ordered and regular weather cycles had existed at least since the time when Joseph made tlie family fortune by predicting seven lean and seven fat years in Egypt, and turning it to good account by hie system of preferential trade. • (Laughter.) . Tlie search for the secret of Joseph's success had engaged the attention of ambitious men from tiiat day to this. After a lengthy reference to the weather records, the effect of sun spots, the weather cycles, and other cog-; nate topics, the lecturer said: —''We have thus seen how the changes in the southern ocean may affect the Australian climate, that it is clearly recognised that the movements in the southern ocean determine some of the most important events in the Indian weather, and-that it is claimed that an earlier discovery of Lockyer's law would have enabled all the Indian famines of last century to have been accurately foretold.

"Meteorology in Australia," ho . continued, "is far behind that of India, and will require to make, up much ground Defore Australia is in the same position of vantage as India. The continent which gave meteorology that powerful agent" of research, Haxgreavea' kite, is the only continent which has not employed it for meteorological work. Professor Schuster, in a recent addrees to the British Aesociation, deplored the conservatism of meteorological work- Hβ declared that meteorologists were enslaved to continuity, that the brilliant progress in science during the past few years had been achieved not by meteorologists at their observations, but in epite of them by experimental work along fresh lines. If Professor Schuster could make euch complaints in Europe, one wonders in what terms he would express his opinions on the condition of meteorology elsewhere. It is not the fault of our meteorologists, who have done wonderfully well with the means at their disposal. "Federal Australia wants united meteorologists working on a uniform plan, and the publishing of uniform records, and thai the service ehould have a sufficient fctaff to fully and promptly use the data collected, and sufficient money to undertake experiments outside the ordinary routine of observatory work. Such a service, to be efficient, must be. as elastic axvd as free from red tape rales aa a Government Department can be. Its officers must carry on their work animated by the love of scientific research, and not in the spirit of business routine. Proposals have been made to introduce into central Australia a sheet of salt water which, though large enough to be somewhat costly, would be s>nwll in comparison to the vast waterless plains it is proposed to benefit, but in the summer, when ram would be of the most good to the country, it is often already covered with a vast sea of water. Day after day in the summer of 1901-2, the district* around Lake Eyre lay under a heavy pall of morose grey cloud. The fall of one tithe of tiiat sea of moisture would have broken the long epell of drought which had laid that country waste. The clouds at times descended as if endeavouring to reach the earth, but the ground was too warm, and they were repelled again to the sky. More than once we had a few drops of rain which showed that the clouds were so near the precipitating point that the slightest impulse would have upset tie balance and brought down heaw rain.

"How high those clouds were above ua, how thick they were, how much their temperature was above the precipitating point, we could not tell. No one knows. As I watched those clouds drifting steadily overhead, I used to long fotr a meteorological kite to sound that sea, of moisture, and I dreamt of the time when kites would spray those clouds with liquid air and discharge their now wasted contents on to the wasted plains below. Fey investments

offer Australia a higher return than meteorological research, bat to be tuooessful that research most be conducted patiently md on well considered limes. It must sound the ocean of air that floata above us, and must w&tch by the collection of water samples of the fundamental changes in the circulation of seas around our shores. In bbc southern ocean ihe conditions are «o much simpkr than those of the North Atlantic that we may expect much greater certainty -in weather predictions. "I see nothing to prevent future Australian meteorologists foretelling correctly a year ahead the general nasture of the approacaing se;«ons. But suoh insight will never come to us until we hay© done our part end studied the hydrography of the southern ocean with the same- methods which have yielded such profitable results in the North Atlantic." (Applause.)