SYMONS'S MONTHLY METEOROLOGICAL MAGAZINE. VOLUME THE NINETEENTH. 1884. LONDON: EDWARD STANFORD, CHARING CROSS, S.W., AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. WE have often expressed our strong objection to duplicate work. There is little doubt that as the most striking phenomena during the above period occurred in Scotland, we shall in due time receive an exhaustive report from the Scottish Meteorological Society. In the interim a short article, presumably by Mr. Buchan, has appeared in Nature, and Mr. Marriott is preparing an outline of the phenomena for the meeting of the Royal Meteorological Society on February 20th. We have therefore transferred to him the communications which we have received upon the subject; and also many of the references to the storm of the 26th which would otherwise have appeared in the "Remarks on the Month." But it would scarcely be right to issue this number without a few words as to the unusual phenomena. I. At Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, off the N.W. of Scotland, on January 20th, at 6 p.m. the barometer was 30.17 in., by 10 p.m. it had fallen to 29.21 in., a fall of 0.96 in. in four hours; it is said to be, and probably is, the greatest fall in so short a time yet recorded in the British Isles. II. During the passage of this storm across the Orkneys, the anemometer at Sandwick Manse indicated a rate of 88 miles an hour, which is said to be "the highest speed at which wind has been known to travel in Great Britain." III. During the afternoon, evening and night of 26th there was a great decrease of barometric pressure. In London it fell to 28-529 in. at 7:30 p.m., a point only passed four times during the last 26 years-but this was as nothing compared with the depression further north-where it went more than an inch lower. The lowest return which we have yet personally received was one from the Rev. Dr. Beverley of Aberdeen, whose standard barometer with a Kew certificate gave 27.381 inches as the sea level pressure at 11:30 p.m. This is thoroughly supported by a reading made at the same time at the Forest of Glen Tana, by Mr. Cunliffe Brooks, M.P., which works out VOL. XIX. Б |