432. Houssa, s.s., and Royal Mail steamship Cameroon; in collision in the harbour of Freetown, October 12, 1879. Inquiry held at Freetown, Sierra Leone, October 15, 1879. Master and mate of Houssa to blame for negligent navigation. Master's certificate suspended for six, and mate's for two months.

433. Ava, s.s.; and Brenhilda, ship; in collision in the Bay of Bengal, May 24, 1879, when the Ava foundered, and many lives were lost. Inquiry held at Calcutta, August 30, 1879. Master of Brenhilda in default; certificate suspended for three months.

GENERAL.

TRAVERSE OF A CURRENT BOTTLE IN THE GREAT SOUTHERN OCEAN.-A bottle thrown overboard from the barque Indus, by Mr. J. de Zouche, M.D., when in lat. 58° 20′ S., long. 87° 13′ W., about 20 degrees west of Cape Horn, was recently picked up on the beach near Cape Bridgewater, Australia. Assuming that it was picked up soon after its being thrown on the shore, the distance was traversed in about one year and ten months, at the average rate of eight to ten miles per day, round Cape Horn, past the Cape of Good Hope, and thence to Australia. We learn the particulars from Mr. J. de Zouche, who is now settled in Dunedin, New Zealand during the voyage, from Brisbane to England, in 1867-7, he threw fifty current bottles overboard, and this is the first of which anything has been heard.

GROUP FLASHING LIGHTS.-The change in the light at the Leman and Ower has already been noticed in the Nautical Magazine; but the Trinity House has issued the following further additional remarks on the subject, which deserve careful consideration :— "The attention of mariners is particularly directed to the character of this light being group flashing,' and not that of an ordinary revolving light. The two flashes occur quickly one after the other, and are followed by a comparatively long interval of darkness; the intervals being approximately 2 seconds of light 5 seconds of darkness, 2 seconds of light 20 seconds of darkness."

A VESSEL FINED FOR BREAKING A TELEGRAPH CABLE.-The Alta California, of Nov. 21st, says, that "the Western Union Telegraph Company have obtained judgment in a Justice's Court against the schooner Dreadnaught for breakage of their submarine cable in Oakland." Whether the award is legitimate or not remains to be again decided. Nevertheless shipmasters should always carefully avoid bringing up in the vicinity of, and between, the buoys that mark the position of such cables. Besides the possible detention of the ship on behalf of the Telegraph Company, the breakage of a cable may (at times) seriously interfere with commercial and political transactions.

NEW YORK PILOTAGE.-There is at the present time a struggle going on between shipowners, masters and merchants, and the pilots of New York. The exceedingly high rates for pilotage have for some time been a source of much discontent, not only among masters and owners of foreign vessels frequenting the port, but also among merchants and shipowners of New York itself and other United States ports, and the discontent has at length found. vigorous expression. The pilots have been invited to reduce their charges by 33 per cent., and to make other concessions, which would have the effect of making the pilotage service more generally patronised and not evaded, as is now so frequently the case. The pilots will not, however, yield to anything like the full extent of the demands made, and so the matter is to be brought before the Legislature, where the contest will no doubt be vigorously carried on. New York has been for a long time a sort of stronghold of compulsory pilotage, the navigation of the channels leading up to the port being full of dangers and difficulties, but now that the shipping interests have so forcibly attacked the present arrangements, we may look for the ultimate abolition of the compulsory system, for the Americans will not be slow to discover that by free-trade and open competition they may be as well served, in regard to pilotage, as by the present system of close monopoly, exorbitant charges and limited number of pilots.

STEAM NAVIGATION OF THE UNITED STATES.-Mr. James A. Dumont, Supervising Inspector-General of Steam Vessels, in his annual report, shows that during the last fiscal year there have

been 4,289 steamers inspected and 15,212 officers licensed. The total number of lives lost by accidents from various causes aggregate 177, forty-four of which are not chargeable to accidents resulting from the use of steam in navigation. Of the whole number of lives lost on steamboats, during the year, 46 were passengers. After giving a detailed statement of fatal accidents by districts, General Dumont says: "It is a gratifying fact that notwithstanding an increase of 400 vessels to the steam merchant marine of the United States since the report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, there has been a steady decrease in the number of total casualties although the passenger-capacity of the steamers since built is much greater, as illustrated in the difference between the steamers then running from New York to Rockaway, with an aggregate capacity of about 1,800 passengers, and those now running upon the same route, with a total capacity of about 7,000 passengers. The fatal casualties reported during the past five years, including those given in this report, aggregate as follows: 1875, 607; 1876, 395; 1877, 224; 1878, 212; and 1879, 177. To the severe discipline exercised by this service over the conduct of the licensed officers of steam-vessels, he says is no doubt largely due this exemption from disasters. Every report affecting the conduct of an officer of steam vessels is promptly investigated by the local inspectors, and if the officer is found guilty of incompetence, misbehaviour, negligence, unskilfulness, or the use of intoxicating drink, his license as an officer is at once suspended or revoked under the powers conferred upon the Inspectors by Section No. 4,450 of the Revised Statutes. The promptness with which this course of discipline is carried out has effectually put an end to accidents that were formerly of frequent occurrence."

HE interest which attaches to any attempt to lift a corner of the curtain which hides the future of weather from our eyes, is easily intelligible when we

recollect the priceless value of the result were any success assured. There is hardly a civilized country which does not set apart funds for the study of meteorology, and one of the chief, if not the very chiefest, of the objects of that science is the prediction of weather.

In climatological enquiry we maintain stations year after year in order to afford evidence of the character of the successive seasons, and from the conditions and variations recorded we draw conclusions as to the conditions and variations to be expected in each district. These conclusions enable us to judge what crops will be likely to succeed, what live-stock will suit the country best, and to what diseases the inhabitants will most probably be exposed. What is all this but weather prophecy?

Again, we search laboriously through log-books to find the true distribution of meteorological conditions over the sea, in order, in Basil Hall's words, to tell the seaman "where to find a fair wind, and where to fall in with a favourable current." What is this but forecasting on a large scale?

VOL. XLIX.

G

In fact, there is not a profession, not a trade, not an occupation, which is not more or less dependent on weather, and which would not derive the greatest benefit from any attainable fore-knowledge of its course.

This being the case, it may well be asked why the ordinary rules which govern supply and demand are inoperative in this case; why the demand for weather knowledge does not produce a class of men able to supply it, and why the European public, in the nineteenth century, catches at the slightest hopes of trustworthy weather prediction with the same eager attention as the Red Indian pays to the utterances of his medicine man, or the Caffre to those of his rain doctor?

At the present time there is not in the wide world a meteorologist of accredited reputation who will undertake to foretell the weather for even three days in advance, much less who will tell a captain leaving London what weather he will meet before he gets clear of the Channel ?

It is easy for newspaper writers to assert that the problem has been solved, but not one of such weather prophets will consent to submit his statements to discussion before a strictly scientific audience, or even to be bound by the literal interpretation of the words in which they are couched.

Science is measurement, and in other branches of science we have simple numerical tests of the truth of hypotheses; but in meteorology, a prophecy of a storm for a certain day is held both by its author and by those of the public who may happen to experience it, to be as completely fulfilled by a squall of half-anhour's duration, as by a gale which lasts for a couple of days. Weather prophets habitually refer to popular recollection of the occurrence of a gale, and call up the ubiquitous oldest inhabitant to prove its violence, much as John Doe and Richard Roe appeared in old legal fiction, trusting, as they safely may, to the fact that not one per cent. of their hearers will take the trouble to test the precise accuracy of their statements.

It has repeatedly been asserted that certain storms exhibit a periodical recurrence, and, as a striking instance of this, the squall of March 24th, 1878, in which H.M.S. Eurydice capsized,