山尾庸三『愚考』、日時は18日とあるのみ。ⓒ早稲田大学大隈文庫

愚行之廉々御含迄ニ左ニ申上候

右鉱山専務 井上

右灯明台専務 佐野

右庶務専務 小野

右諸規則取調並ニ学校専務 吉井

右造船製作専務 山尾

右会計専務 帰省中 松尾

右伝信掛専務 未タ奉命前 福谷

右之外有用之仁 二名

右エキスキューチンク専務 壱名

右同マネジャ専務 壱名

但マネジャを上野を待て可也乎

右要地測量専務 壱名

尤洋人壱名御雇入ニ而成年生徒数名手伝候ハ、修業ニも相成可然乎巳ニ灯明台之為の英政府より遣候仁ブラントンと不和ニて当時御暇ニ相成居ソ之仁壱ヶ年程御試ニ而ハ如何乎且東京ヨリ神奈川辺測量を手始めとして可也

・現業部門は鉱山、灯台、学校、造船･製作、電信、事務部門は庶務、規則並び学校、会計としている。それ以外に、測量を含む3つの部局を新たに付け加えることを想定している。

・測量部門の専務には、ブラントンと不仲になって燈明台お雇いを辞めた英国人を当てようと考えている。この人物はColin Alexander McVeanであることは間違いない。

・文中に以下の3つの疑問がある。

-1）エキスキューチンクとマネジャはそれぞれExecutionとManagerであり、Executionは執行を、Managerは管理者を意味する。山尾は英語を十分に理解でき、それに相応しい和訳を当てはめることができたのに、なぜカタカナ表記にしたのだろうか。意味するところは、マネジャは事務局長、エキスキューチンクは執行局長すなわち技術局長であろう。

-2）山尾『愚考』の学校は、モレルの工部省創設建議中の教導部から派生したものであろうか。

-3）ここで山尾は造船製作部門の専務を希望しているが、工部省編成が叶ったときには彼は工学寮頭測量司正となっている。山尾がグラスゴーでネピア造船所に勤務した経験があるから、自らは造船を希望したということなのだと思うが、学校専務はなぜ吉井なのだろうか。

-4）作成年月日は、18日としか記入されていない。工部省建置は太政官内で大変な議論の末に明治3年10月20日に決まったもので、その渦中の明治3年10月18日に山尾が愚考として提案したとは考えられない。また、マクヴェインが山尾と親しくなる時期としてはあまりにも早すぎる。明治4年4月頃、工部学校構想が矢継ぎ早に具体化し、同じ時期に認められたと考えられる。すると、明治4年4月18日の可能性が高い。

(2) 太政類典：明治6年10月14日工部省測量技術通学生規則ヲ定及び明治7年3月3日内務省測量技術通学生規則ヲ改定ス

(3) 井上琢智、小野義真と日本鉄道株式会社Gishin Ono and the Japan Railway Company, 2010. 

「出仕直後の4 月18 日、大隈重信宛に出した書簡で工部権大丞山尾庸三は工部省組織改革案を提案しているが、その中で井上勝（鉱山専務）、佐野常民（灯台専務）、山尾（造船製作専務）などの技術官僚に加えて、事務方として吉井亨（諸規則取調並ニ学校専務）とともに、小野義真が庶務専務となることが提案されている13)。このことは、すでに出仕時点で小野義真の名前はおろか、その事務方としての能力を工部省および山尾は十分に把握し、それが彼の官僚への道を拓いたと考えられる。 

同明治4 年10 月7 日には、土木司の工部省への移管により、工部省土木寮土木助に任ぜられ、さらに10 月8 日、土木寮は営繕寮と合併して工部省からの大蔵省へ移管により、大蔵少丞に任ぜられた14)。この頃の小野義真は、明治5 年5 月4 日の井上馨宛の渋沢栄一の書簡で「岡本・郷〈純造〉・小野・熊谷〈武五郎〉杯も皆我党之人」15) と報告されていることから明らかなように、井上馨らの厚い信頼を得ていた。さらに小野義真は、明治5 年11 月26 日、同省営繕土木寮頭へと昇進していく16)。」

※明治初期の限界は、政治家と企業家が技術者と一緒になって夢を実現していくべきところを、日本人技術者がまだ育ってきておらず、蘭学や西欧留学により科学技術をちょっとかじっただけの政治家が幅をきかせていたことによる。もともと土佐藩には科学技術に長じた藩士がいなく、工部省を発足を前に土佐藩から事務方として小野義眞が山尾のもとに推薦されてきたのである。工部省が発足すると小野は土木寮土木助となったが、すぐに大蔵省へ移管されると土木寮頭に昇進した。1873年11月には内務省に移管されることになるが、この間、小野はどのようなことを主導したのかはまったく不明。従来の治水は継承するものの、明治新政府がいったい何をすべきかという彼の構想が見当たらない。明治初期に土木事業が軽視されたのはこのような人事にあったのかしれない。

(4) McVean Achieves

(5) 遺構Remnants of Early Meiji Survey

・京都Kyoto-清水寺標石

所在地 東山区清水一丁目(清水寺内)、位置座標 北緯34度59分43.7秒／東経135度46分59.8秒(世界測地系)、設置年1875年、建立者内務省地理局(内務省地理寮)、[東]明治八年[北]明治十五年八月建地理局

・横浜Yokohama-八幡町水準点、内務省地理寮水準点（高低几号標）（横浜市南区八幡町１番地 中村八幡宮） －横浜市地域文化財史跡（平成10（1998）年11月9日指定）－

(6) 「明治六年一月東京府関学明細書」

第十表土木司測量所、洋算塾昇量軒（綿一山駄一昨咋一）塾、王東京府貫属士族小野吉正の履歴に「明治三庚午年正引一克土木司測量所御開成修業相願、同四辛未年九月中測量所被廃」と

III-2. 水路測量に関してHydrographic Survey

※既往研究の出典はもっぱら柳楢悦らの記録であり、そのため柳らの行動が正当化されている[東京天文台90周年記念誌：109頁他]。幕末から明治初期に独自に水路測量を行い、それを日本人に指導したイギリス海軍側からの記録と、当時の英字新聞雑誌記事から、はたして柳の行動がどのようなものであったのか批判的に見ることができるように思う。(unfinished in February 2, 2020)

(1) McVean Achieves

William Francis Maxwell's Letter to C.A.McVean, 1868-1874.マクヴェイン宛てマックスウェルの書簡

(2) Memoir of the Hydrographic Survey, the Admiralty.

(3) Collaboration with British Naval with survey vessel SLYVIA by Captain St. John, 1868-1875.大映海軍測量船シルビア号の活動

-The Japan Weekly Mail, March 13, 1875.

   AN EXCURSION INTO THE INTERIOR PARTS OF YAMATO PROVINCE. By Capt. St. John, R. N., H. M. S. Silvia.

Head before the Asiatic Society of Japan on the February, 1875.

Before beginning a short account of an excursion I made in connection with the survey of this part of the coast, I should like, considering the little that is known about the east side of the provinces of Kii, Yam ato, and Ise, to draw a slight sketch of the whole coast-line from Oosima, in the extreme south, to Tola in the North,

-The Japan Weekly Mail, March 28, 1875.

   THE YESO FISHERIES. To the Editor, or the " Japan Weekly Mail." H. M. S. Sylvia, Kobe, 12th March, 1875.

Sir,—From reading an article on " The Knitakushi" in your number of February 27th, I am induced to send you a few extracts from notes made when surveying the Eastern parts of Yesso. I spent from the 6th of May until the 8th of August 1871 between Akishi bay on the South side, to Abishica on the North.

-The Japan Weekly Mail, June 12, 1875.

GUNTER'S CHAIN. To the Editor of the "Japan Weekly Mail." June 6th, 1875.

Dear Sir.—May I ask through the medium of your valuable paper—for what reason the Japanese Government have permitted the use of the Gunter chain in a great portion of their survey work P

The Gunter chain was invented for the use of English landowners and engineers, being a compromise between the acre and the mile—the advantages of which are obvious.

Now Japan has neither acres, or miles—although It may be urged that 11 ken equal 1 chain. Because English surveyors are employed, is it a reason that this country should be bnrdeued with a system totally unsuited for its requirements? As far as I can learn these sur

veyors would gladly use tho 100 ft. chain, now extensively adopted in our colonies. The Government being closely allied to the native »haku would probably render its introduction easier than the rotStre, but the latter has the advantage of probably becoming the much desired universal standard.

These little matters may be of slight import to the Government, who, indeed, have more weighty affairs to attend to. I nevertheless hope that a timely warning from your able pen would not be without effect on the public, and that our old friend Guuter will be forced to return home and to look out for a quiet retreat to which he can retire, when his more modern rival gains the day.

I remain, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, C. N. K.

III-3. 気象観測に関してMeteorological Observation

(unfinished in February 2, 2020)

(1) McVean Diary and Correspondence

III-4. 天文観測に関してAstronomical Observation

(unfinished in February 2, 2020)

(1) McVean Diary and Correspondence

IV. 考察Argument

IV-1. 測量Survey

IV-2. 水域測量

IV-3. 気象観測

IV-4. 天体観測

Attached Research Materials

(1) Early China Coast Meteorology; the Role of Hong Kong by P. Kevin MacKeown, 2011, Hong Kong University Press, 

1 Nineteenth-Century Observatories 

Meteorology will not be in working order for two years more: but 'Hart' is Inn& if time is fleeting. Robert Hart, December 1873' 

Introduction 

The scientific approach to the physical world which blossomed in Europe from the time of Newton and his contemporaries onwards only slowly diffused to more distant regions, and that encroachment was largely under the cloak of European colonial expansion. The extension of the community of science can hardly be described as a missionary undertaking. The propagation of the ways of thinking of scientists did not preoccupy them in the way that the saving of souls moved religiously minded individuals. Of course, we are not talking of mutually exclusive classes. The role of science was pressed into service in the cause of evangelization on many fronts. Ironically, the successes of these endeavours, as we will see, were particularly favourable to the propagation of scientific thinking, more so than to the conversion of the heathen. The ground for foreign encroachment on traditional patterns of thought was fertile in some places more than others. The bulk of Asia — India, China, Japan — was heir to rich educational traditions that could easily sympathize with the new ways of thinking. We are concerned in this volume with a part of the world, the South China Sea and its littoral, and the subject of meteorology, a subject paradigmatic of the scientific approach to nature, emphasizing systematic observation and rigorous analysis in the solution of problems.

Meteorology as a subject was of as much interest 150 years ago as it is today, in the early twenty-first century. The scenario to which it relates, of course, has changed immeasurably over the intervening years, but the urgency of its practice was no less attended to then than it is these days. However, the perceived pedestrian nature of its study seems to have eclipsed its role in most chronicles of the times. The story of the military and political endeavours in the advancement of imperial designs by Europeans in other parts of the world in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries has had many tellings. So also have there been many reports on the lives and adventures of the individuals who took part. Botanical and zoological enquiries among colonial servants, as well as casual travellers, have had wide reporting, but it is only recently that medicine, and to a much lesser extent the physical sciences and engineering, have drawn some attention.2 We are concerned with a factual account of the small, specialized subject of meteorology and especially how it was practised on the 'China Coast'. Astronomy, and geomagnetism, bedmates of the subject in the early scientific age, will naturally also attract some attention. Although it is not our primary purpose, the story related also throws light on the strengths, foibles and prejudices of colonial society, as well as its attitudes to and interactions, in many cases minimal, with the native populations. There is much more to the story of meteorology in the Orient than an account of the role of the Hong Kong Observatory and we will make some attempt to cover these other aspects, but our focus will be on the evolution of the Observatory in Hong Kong and its relations with other Asian observatories. For good or bad, the history of the first thirty years of that observatory is in great part a chronicle of the career of Dr. William Doberck, the Observatory's founding director and the institution's feisty leader for twenty-four of those thirty years. His near quarter-century stay there and the shadow he cast for a further six years in the person of his close colleague and successor, Frederic George Figg, who retired in 1912, form a definitive timeframe for the study in hand. Doberck's fame as an astronomer is also an excuse to treat, briefly, the early history of astronomy in Hong Kong. Its later developments are described elsewhere.3 

To some, the very identification of meteorology in the East with its manifestations in Hong Kong will appear offensive. Compared to the contributions made by the observatories in China, Japan and the Philippines, Hong Kong will often appear, at least in the sense of resources, to have been a minor, but also a fractious player in the meteorology of the region in those times. We choose 1912 as the year at which to take stock of the development of observatories in East Asia, largely because it marks a watershed in the history of the Observatory in Hong Kong. The thirtieth year of its existence was the year in which the last of the cohort of early officers retired, the time when any pretence at playing a role in astronomy was discarded and a management more attuned to the modern demands of meteorology took charge. It was also the year in which, in a formal sense, it turned over a new leaf when `Royal' was added to its title.' The same year saw the new Republican government in China introducing not one but two meteorological institutes, one associated with the ministry of agriculture and the other with the ministry of education. But before getting to the core of the story it is informative to look briefly at the geopolitical context in which the Hong Kong Observatory originated and the history of other colonial observatories predating its founding. 

Early Systematic Observations

The weather in all cultures has always been a matter of comment and concern and accounts of it have survived in many places, not least in the exhaustive records of natural phenomena to be found in Chinese documents, official and private. The earliest quantitative measurements made were of rainfall in China and Korea.5 Descriptions relevant to our story were also given by early Portuguese explorers at Macao and Canton, and by Dutch traders in Japan. Such records are valuable for studies of climatology and how the climate may have varied over time but, being largely non-quantitative, they have little to contribute to a history of meteorology as such. Before a review of systematic studies of the subject and a description of the main sources of early meteorological work in East Asia the various observatories established there from the mid-nineteenth century onwards — we will record a few isolated instances of systematic recordings made by individuals, some dating as far back as the seventeenth century.

There is the example of an Irish sojourner at Xiamen, by the name of James Cunningham, who in 1699 published an account of measurements he made there on the pressure, the wind direction and the state of the weather from October 1698 to the following January.' Mr. Cunningham, later a fellow of the Royal Society, was for a time a physician to the English traders on Zhoushan (Chusan) Island, nine kilometres off the coast in Hangzhou Bay. Another notable example of early meteorological monitoring comes from Sweden. From the 1730s the Swedish Academy of Sciences had an arrangement with the Swedish East India Company (a rather enlightened body of men) to carry scientists on board their China-bound ships.' At least one meteorological record from this enterprise survives: a near complete tabulation by an anonymous visitor of the rainfall at Macao from early March to 12 September 1780.8 Another interesting case is that of a private observatory that was established at Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies, as early as 1765. Its owner was the self-taught German-Dutch Reverend Johan Maurits Mohr, whose wife fell into a large inheritance. This enabled him to build and equip his own private observatory from where he made various meteorological and astronomical observations, including two Transits of Venus. A nucleus of amateur scientists built up around his observatory, but by 1790 activity had declined, not to recover again for almost a century.° 

China: The Early Days 

Records of the weather, as is the case with all observations of nature, have a long history in China. However, in her history of the Hong Kong Observatory, Ho Pui-yin remarks on the failure to keep continuous records of meteorological phenomena, the observers in general only recording exceptional events, and she describes records of many such events, especially typhoons, in the weather in Southern China from pre-Observatory days.'° So, unlike astronomy, meteorology in China in the pre-scientific age never reached any level of sophistication. In the words of China's most distinguished meteorological son, Zhu Kezhen," it never advanced beyond the stage of prognostication by proverbs, of which many exist. Typical is: 

If on the first come wind and rain,

Twill bring us pestilence and pain;

If at Ch'ing Ming a south wind come,

It means a plenteous harvest-home.12 

Nevertheless, although extensive records exist which would be valuable to students of climate for inferring climate and climate change in China, it would be stretching a point to suggest they played any determining role in the development of modern meteorology.

From the earliest days of their participation in the working of the Peking Observatory, and the time of Ferdinand Verbiest in the mid-seventeenth century, the Jesuit priests attached to that Observatory included meteorological monitoring among the curriculum of new knowledge they introduced into the Celestial Kingdom. We have some records of the first half of the eighteenth century from the French Jesuits there in the form of data they forwarded to the French Academy in Paris. Extensive data on temperature and wind direction, measured at 06:30 and 15:30 daily from July 1743 until March 1746 at the Observatory, communicated by a Fr. Antoine Gaubil, have been reported." The French had a reputation for rigour in their instrumentation — a resolution in their temperature measurements of 0.31°C at that time has been deduced14 and the systematic manner in which the data were accumulated must lend much confidence in their reliability. These data are particularly interesting for establishing, in the summer of 1743, a recorded all time high of 44.4°C in the capital, and a heat wave in North China in which Fr. Gaubil reports 11 400 deaths around the capital; this heat wave is amply confirmed by many qualitative reports of the time in official documents and provincial chronicles. It has been concluded that it was the highest temperature encountered at Peking in the last seven hundred years. But there is more to meteorology than temperature records. Other observations on the pressure, the wind direction and the state of the weather, made twice daily at Peking from 1757 to 1762 were reported by another Jesuit father, Jean-Joseph Amiot. '5 

An Early Publication in Chinese

There are different readings of the confrontation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries between Western science as prosecuted by the colonial powers and indigenous populations in the territories they bestrode, either as colonial mandarins, philanthropists or missionaries. The case of meteorology might seem to be fairly simple compared, say, with the complexity of the encounter of Western medicine with native populations. Meteorology would largely be in the service of the foreigners, the benefit to the locals only incidental to this role. Yet the earliest systematic introduction of the subject to the China Coast, the publication of a book in Chinese on the subject in the 1850s by a foreign missionary, was exclusively directed at native readership. The subsequent establishment by the Jesuits of major meteorological observatories in China and the Philippines also cannot be easily read as the deliberate prosecution of colonial-oriented goals, even if they would eventually be co-opted into that exercise.

The book in question was published in 1853 by the American missionary doctor Daniel Jerome MacGowan at Ningbo.'6 MacGowan himself did not claim to make any meteorological measurements, but he was an active participant in a programme of bringing Western scientific thought to the attention of educated Chinese, with the twin aims of rejuvenating their society and spreading the Christian message.° Two years earlier at Ningbo he had published Bo Wu Tong Shu or the Philosophical Almanac, a text introducing electricity to local readers in the context of explaining the electric telegraph. It contained illustrations featuring such items as Leyden jars and Toepler-Holtz machines, and proposed a never-to-be-adopted code of eighteen Chinese symbols to be used on the telegraph keyboard. That book was eventually translated into Japanese and its terminology played a role in decisions made there between Dutch-based and Chinese-based nomenclature in physics. The book by MacGowan of interest to us is titled Hang hai jin zhen (the Navigator's Golden Needle, see Fig. 1) and separately in English, The Law of Storms in Chinese. It consists of thirty-seven pages and is a singular publication on meteorology at the time. It contains a brief introduction in English, in which the author tells us that the chapter on typhoons in the South China Sea in Col. Reid's work forms the basis for his publication, but that works by Redfield and Piddington were also consulted.'$ He acknowledges financial assistance from J. C. Bowring at Hong Kong in publishing his pamphlet. He continues: 'So much of the science of meteorology as applies to the subject has been introduced, with some general principles of navigation as practiced in the West; the whole being interspersed with remarks on natural and revealed religion'. He castigated the Chinese for their slowness to appreciate new discoveries, but hoped that his pamphlet would help Chinese navigators to escape the fury of the storms and lead them to `make observations calculated to perfect our acquaintance with the tracks of revolving storms, in regions rarely visited by foreign ships'. He wrote further: 

they need instruction in those sciences which are the source of so much of the wealth and power of our native lands, and without which the resources of the empire can never be fully developed. In supplying them with works of a scientific character, we shall not only promote their material interests, but by employing these as media for conveying religious truth, we shall contribute largely to their intellectual and moral regeneration.

Apart from the text it contains five leaves of diagrams and a large folding sheet showing the course of typhoons in the China Sea. 

Fig. 1. MacGowan's 1853 booklet at Ningbo. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia. 

MacGowan translated the booklet into Chinese, he said, with supplements of his own ideas, so that mariners would know how to avoid hurricanes and master the principles of navigation. In this he is being modest. The work is not at all a literal translation of Reid's chapter. Not only does he add a discussion of basic meteorological principles like atmospheric pressure and the role of the earth's rotation in wind patterns, and adapt the material to the region of the South China Sea, but his discussions of phenomena are much more user-friendly than the sometimes rambling account in Reid. Although his main intention was to advise sailors on the avoidance of harm when encountering a typhoon, in a final chapter he introduces the principles and methods of navigation, especially the determination of position. Explaining the arbitrariness in assigning a zero of longitude, he chose the capital, Peking, as his zero reference in the one labelled chart he presented.19 He also explains the origins of the tides, contrasting the moon/sun role in the phenomenon with the role of a large fish in a hole in the sea believed by some, he said, to be the explanation. He admitted to ignorance of the names of some islands along the coast and of conditions in the seas north of Taiwan, and invited his Chinese sailor readers to help him. They should fill in the names of the unknown islands and if they encountered typhoons they should record the time, location and the change of the direction of the wind in a timely and continuous fashion, and send their records to the consuls of Western countries. When he had the results he promised he would write another book. He included a chart of typical typhoon tracks in the region, but in the absence of any land-based observatories in that part of the world at the time all such compilations were based on the reports in ships' logs, and it is not too surprising that the chart shows some deficiencies when compared with later summaries. We will return to this issue in chapter 6. 

The theological interventions threatened in the introduction are tolerably few. In defence of the scientific method he wrote how as a king administers his kingdom according to laws, so God administers the universe according to laws, too, and that the wind was to be understood as one of God's laws — a contrast he wished to make against prevailing yin-yang theories. More evangelical was his advice on personal behaviour on encountering a storm, and being in a position where the ship is nearly destroyed. The mariner should keep a cool head, not panic nor lose his wits and abandon steering. He should not prostrate himself before idols on board and so lose his own judgment. Instead, he should worship with his heart the only true God in heaven, and his son Jesus Christ. Only this God was effective. How could idols made from wood and earth save him? He closed his pamphlet on a moralizing tone, explaining how he had come from afar, not in search of profit or rank but to awaken common people to the truth, and how proper conduct in society, not focussing on profit and greed, was ultimately of greater importance than the avoidance of typhoons. Although of considerable interest to us here, it is questionable whether MacGowan's book had any significant influence in the country at the time. Did any sailors take up his advice to abandon idols, or his request to forward information to the foreign consuls? It seems unlikely; no second book emerged and no later writers on meteorology in China makes any mention of the one he did write. As we have seen, the book was an early indicator of efforts of foreigners and Chinese together to bring modern developments in mathematics and the sciences to the attention of the citizens of the Empire, but it was to be the only one centred on meteorology.20 We will encounter no later instances where colonial officials or missionary priests attempted to assimilate native potential in the advancement of the subject, but more usually an opinion on their part dismissive of the ability of local employees for such work. 

China: Systematic Recording Pre-1860

The earlier meteorological activity of the Jesuits in the capital had largely been forgotten by the time, more than a hundred years later in 1863, when an attempt was made to revive scientific meteorology there by Robert Hart, inspector-general of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. But before we embark on that episode we must note some organized efforts to publish meteorological data for the country The Canton Register was inaugurated as an English-language publication in November 1827 and from issue No. 36 in October 1838 it began to carry regularly daily temperature, pressure and wind measurements for that city, although it does not state where or by whom they were made. The temperature was quoted to the nearest Fahrenheit degree and the pressure to 1/20th of an inch of mercury. A new journal in the city, the Chinese Repository, in its first volume in 1833 carried an article on the climate, reproduced some of the data for 1831 from the Canton Register, but also carried records of temperature and pressure at Macao from the 'private diary of Mr. Blettennann' and rainfall data at Macao for sixteen years courtesy of a Mr. Beale?' 

In 1835 Bemerkungen uber die klimatischen Verhaltnisse des sudlichen China by the pioneering German plant physiologist Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen was published in Europe?' On a round-the-world expedition, 1830-32, he monitored meteorological conditions four times daily. On the basis of a four-month sojourn at Macao and Canton in the autumn of 1831, he presumed to write an account of the climate of South China. He made observations of the temperature for a couple of days in August at Northwest Lantau23 — where he also collected some botanical specimens — before moving on to Macao. There, for a couple of days he recorded temperature and pressure, followed by two weeks at Canton where he recorded thermometer and psychrometer (relative humidity) data. Although his report may contain the first meteorological data from what would become the territory of Hong Kong, his work is less useful for his own observations than for the compilation of earlier data from Canton and Macao that he presented. Some of it dates back to 1785, the temperature and the winds throughout that year at Canton recorded by C.-L.-J. de Guignes, the French consul in the city at the time.24 Meyen, in furtherance of his primary interest, botany, took the opportunity of visiting two men in Macao who cultivated large and mature gardens and found some interesting plant specimens. But the two men, the same two responsible for the data published at Canton noted above, were the Dutch general-consul there, Mr. Blettermann and an English merchant, Thomas Beale, who both dabbled in meteorology and had accumulated some records on rainfall and temperature.25 From Blettermann he collected the extensive data on rainfall he had recorded at Macao from 1812 to 1831 (excluding two years). Meyen also presents four years (1827-30) of temperature data (and one year of pressure data) at Macao recorded by Beale, and temperature data at Canton for 1829-31 as reported in the Canton Register of the time. The climate of Canton and Macao was also considered by another traveller at this time.26 He gave the mean monthly temperature and pressure during 1831 at Canton, from the Canton Register, and at Macao from a `private diary' of Mr. Blettermann. Average monthly rainfall over a period of sixteen years attributed to Mr. Beale was also presented. 

The Role of Observatories 

As we have noted, established observatories would be the main source of information on meteorology. Apart from evolving observatories in Japan, which in the years of interest to us, in their infancy, made but a small contribution to China Coast meteorology, all such institutions were products of the Western colonial expansion in that part of the world. As such they must be viewed in the context of the establishment of observatories overseas by the colonial powers generally, with the British dictating the paradigm for this study. There were, however, contributions by the French, the Spanish, the Russians and the Dutch, and also a tentative role by the quasi-autonomous Imperial Chinese Maritime Custom Service authorities. The role of observatories in the colonial expansion of Western powers into Asia is not a simple linear story. All the major colonial powers devoted effort to some aspects of the physical sciences usually associated with an observatory and established suitable institutions in that part of the world. In the case of Hong Kong a direct role in colonial expansion is clear. In several other cases it was more the fact that observatories, and observers, were co-opted into the imperial enterprise. However, the aspects emphasized could 

vary greatly, and the forces directing them were equally diverse. Astronomy, meteorology, seismology and geomagnetic phenomena all featured, with greater or lesser emphasis, in the developments. 

Astronomy was, of course, the doyen among these subjects, but its occurrence was more often the default condition of the practical requirements of providing a time service rather than the academic pastime its practitioners pursued in other parts and, indeed, would have liked to pursue in the Orient. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Hong Kong, where, as we will see, the frustrated `Government Astronomer' fought a gallant, but unavailing, fight in defence of his passion for the subject. Nor can anywhere else in the region be said to have fared any better in this respect. The provision of a time service was a very important duty in the early days of these observatories, especially at ports with major shipping traffic such as Shanghai and Hong Kong. Indeed it was the very raison d'être for the founding of the latter observatory. The demands for such a service can be seen from the total numbers of vessels entering and leaving Hong Kong: in 1885, 27 100 (344 sailing), in 1900, 82 500 (78 sailing) and in 1912, 489 000 (1 sailing), with respective tonnages of 5.66 million, 18.45 million and 36.74 million. But from the intellectual point of view there was nothing new to be learned from this pursuit and, as it happened, the growth of telegraphy meant that the importance of locally establishing the time steadily declined. 

Seismology, in general, had a more particular local interest but, more relevantly, the subject was far from being easily understood and, at the same time, was of little practical application. Only true devotees were involved. The most intriguing subject in our purview of subjects studied in the observatories is terrestrial magnetism. The magnetic compass was an essential of navigation, both by sea and surface, and an accurate map of the geomagnetic field was a prime necessity, but the study of magnetism went far beyond such a pedestrian requirement. The analogue, in the nineteenth century, of a modern high-technology laboratory was a geomagnetic observatory. No expense was spared in furnishing such laboratories world-wide with the most sensitive of instruments, monitoring the time variability of the components of the earth's magnetic field. Once set up, such a laboratory was relatively easy to maintain, but did require a dedicated observer to supervise the observations. It must often have seemed a thankless task, but they contributed to the very foundations of the subject of geophysics, one might almost say, when correlations with solar conditions are acknowledged, cosmic physics.

Meteorology, however, was the paramount subject justifying the existence of these observatories. Not only did the expansion in sea and, later, air travel mean that it came to play an increasingly important role, but there was much that was new to be learned. This was especially the case with regard to storms in the Pacific and the China Sea, which were such a source of destruction to life and property both on land and on sea. It is recorded that on 17 July 1281 a fleet of 3500 ships assembled by the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan for an invasion of Japan was totally destroyed by a typhoon off the coast of Kyushu, and it was reported that only three of the 100,000 men aboard made it back to China. Storms in Europe, the Indian Ocean and the Antilles had been extensively studied by the middle of the nineteenth century and it remained to establish their nature and properties in the Far East. The historical importance of all the observatories in that part of the world lies almost entirely in the advances achieved by their pioneering staff in understanding such meteorological phenomena, and in weather forecasting. 

The Earliest European Institutions 

The Russian Observatory at Peking 

The earliest of the European-run meteorological services in Asia was a small unit attached to the Russian Orthodox Mission in Peking from 1841. In 1849 this was expanded to a magnetic cum meteorological observatory which was constructed on the grounds of the Embassy, and it recorded data sporadically until 1863.27 In 1867 the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg took over the operation and dispatched Dr. Hermann Fritsche as director of the Peking Observatory For the next sixteen years Fritsche coordinated a systematic programme of magnetic and meteorological observations, some of them at stations away from Peking. In 1877, at Shanghai, he published The Climate of Eastern Asia, the first substantial work (230 pages) on meteorology in that part of the world. It is perhaps a surprise to find Fritsche decrying the adoption of the metric system by European meteorologists (which, perforce, he had to use himself) since he was of the opinion that the French system differed more from the so-called natural measure than the English, and only 'France with its small territory' would be at a disadvantage if English standards were used.28 Much of his book is devoted to tables of temperature, pressure and cloud cover (minima, maxima and means), mostly at North Asian locations but including Shanghai, Fuzhou, Keelung, Canton, Hong Kong and Bangkok. We shall have cause to refer to it from time to time later. 

The Imperial Chinese Customs: Robert Hart 

An important figure in early meteorology in China is Robert Hart, the inspector-general of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. The Chinese Maritime Customs, later when amalgamated with the Qing office of foreign affairs (the Tsungli Yamen), the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs, was originally set up in 1854 as a foreign-operated institution by the Shanghai municipal authorities and the foreign consuls in the city. Although later formally part of the Qing administration, the British always retained a dominant position in the unit. 

Hart, an Irishman, was its long-serving second head (1863-1910). In the event, his efforts in meteorology, always but a very small part of his portfolio, were of much value, although much less successful than he had hoped for. Hart had already coordinated the customs medical officers at stations in the treaty ports into a data-gathering body for providing half-yearly reports, which went on to become a very successful operation.29 Encouraged by this, and mindful that climatic factors was one of the categories encompassed in that work, in November 1869 he devised a similar plan to encompass meteorology in the Empire.3° He wrote to the commissioners at fourteen Customs stations informing them that he intended a meteorological station to be associated with each Customs office. They would be equipped with the necessary apparatus, and `two or three simple books on Meteorology etc'. He originally saw the collection of data would also be done by lighthouse keepers at the many new lighthouses established along the coast. They would report, at least initially, to a meteorological department under the statistical secretary and the marine secretary, resident at Shanghai, although he hoped that `in a few years these meteorological stations will ... have at their head an observatory to be established in connection with the Peking college [Tongwen Guan]'. The Tongwen Guan, originally founded in 1862 as a college for interpreters, was later expanded and became the premier venue for the expansion in the teaching of mathematics and the physical sciences in the country. 

It was under the administration of the Customs Service. It was not until four years later that Hart became really enthusiastic about encompassing meteorology in the Custom Service's activities, observing that: `the Medical Reports are a success ... the meteorological observations and exchange of weather-news will, in time, fill up the gap and help to give the West sets of facts concerning the East that must prove most useful to scientific men',31 and 'if comparative meteorology is to accomplish anything anywhere anyday, 1 fancy our Stations will be as near the front as any others. I seem to have kept it back until just the right moment'.32 He would be sorely disappointed. He took steps to equip these stations. In March 1873 he asked J. D. Campbell, his agent in London, to consult with the astronomer royal on the required instrumentation, of which twenty sets would be purchased. Twelve sets were to be sent, he hoped by August of that year, to Shanghai, and eight to the Customs agent in Hong Kong," but later, on 29 May, he speaks only of twelve sets to be sent to the `cosmopolitan stations'.34 It is almost certain that his original idea to have sets of instruments sent to Hong Kong was not followed up, for reasons we cannot discern.

The unknown context, however, may explain a certain coolness detectable in his attitude later to the observatory established there; he appears to have had no input in the setting up of the observatory. He also wished his proposal to be made widely known among scientific circles at home, although he was not convincingly clear as to what would be achieved, at one time writing: `find out if there is any special line in which such stations can be made useful either to established receptacles of knowledge, or to isolated experimentalists, specialists, etc.' and at another: `here ... there is a movement under way to assist science and give shipping the benefit of the information supplied by daily observations'.35 For a man educated in the liberal arts (Greek, Latin, English literature, modern languages, etc.) at Queen's University, Belfast, Hart always showed a shrewd scientific sense, here wanting to know: 'which will be the best hours to take [the observations] and what will be the very smallest number to be taken daily to be compatible with utility'. By May of that year he had drawn up an ambitious list of sites along the Asian coast accessible by telegraph where he hoped to have meteorological stations established — Posiet (Vladivostock), Yokohama, Nagasaki, Newchwang, Hankow, Lamock Islands (near Shantou), Hong Kong, Manila, Saigon, Bangkok, Singapore and Batavia, and had written to the relevant authorities in this context. Already, he reported, the `Chinese Customs are going to send weather news by telegraph every morning from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Amoy and Nagasaki' 36 Some of the instruments arrived at Shanghai by early December, `two whole and four smashed barometers', but these broken instruments were not his only difficulty.

Others were to arise on two fronts, with the Chinese authorities perhaps not unanticipated — but also apparently, elsewhere. In his letter to Campbell, on 18 October 1873, he writes: `The [meteorological] work can be put off for another year: it will be better to begin well than to begin badly. You may be on the lookout for a meteorologist: but do not engage one until you have my positive orders to do so. I do not quite like the intensity of "Brother J's" interest: to me it looks like a desire to take the lead out of our hands, and I shall not authorize you to visit W. for the present'." A month later he is writing: 'we'll have to go at Meteorology very gradually'38 and in December: `Meteorology will not be in working order for two years more: but "Hart" is long, if time is fleeting'. If we take the identification by the editors of the letters, of `Brother J' with John Bull, i.e. England, and 'W' with Whitehall, it seems that the Colonial Office, with which Hart had no official relations, was taking an interest in the 

matter here, perhaps, lies another possible explanation for the total absence of any reference to Hart in the setting up of the Hong Kong Observatory. An antagonism in this direction is also suggested by Hart's unfavourable opinion of a Mr. Wodehouse who applied for a meteorological position, ostensibly because he was an amateur, but, as the editors of his letter suggest, the fact that Wodehouse was `a man of very high standing in the Colonial Service' did not endear him to the inspector general." 

Campbell informed Hart of the high opinion of Mr. Blanford, the meteorological reporter for Bengal, of his scheme: tut thinks it too "ambitious" and fears it will fail unless you can get a man, who thoroughly understands such work, to carry it out' 40 He finally decided that the data from the chain of coastal stations would be channelled to the head station in Peking and the programme directed by an astronomer stationed at the Tongwen Guan. A very suitable candidate for the astronomer's post was found, one Ralph Copeland, and in a letter to Campbell of 30 September 1874, he writes: 'Herewith authority to appoint Copeland ... the "Chair" means schoolmaster's work, ... life in China has many drawbacks: on the other hand it is possible that if he "takes well", he may make a career, for the Chinese have an immense reverence for Astronomy'.4" Mr. Copeland had some short-term plans, including a visit to Mauritius for observing the transit of Venus in late 1874, but such a delay was deemed acceptable and, for Copeland, turned out to be fortunate, for when the time came around that he was free to go to China the whole scheme had fallen through. The Chinese authorities appear to have had a change of heart, probably a reluctance to see further encroachment by foreigners in its territory in a sensitive field, though not so explained by Hart when he wrote to Campbell in January 1876 that: `the Yamen has backed out of its desire to have a Professor of Astronomy and says we must wait. I tell them they have lost such a chance as they'll never have again. They reply. "There's corn in Egypt".42 No more is heard of his proposal. Copeland went on to a distinguished career: professor of astronomy at Edinburgh and eventually astronomer royal for Scotland. As will be seen later, after 1882 the Jesuit observatory at Zikawei took over the coordination of data monitored by Customs officers along the coast, while the founding director of the Hong Kong Observatory was to come across the meteorological instruments, still stored unboxed, in the Custom Houses at Shanghai and Xiamen in the autumn of 1883 to begin a new phase in the story.

The attitude of reluctance of the Chinese Imperial government in respect of making use of foreign expertise contrasts with that of contemporary Meiji Japan, where foreigners were conscripted, at very attractive rates of pay, but for just such duration as enabled their expertise to be transferred to local students. A notable example was the unemployed ex-master of the Hong Kong Mint, Thomas William Kinder, whose salary as director of the Osaka Mint in 1870 was 50% more than that of the Japanese prime minister. There was also in China a failure to abjure traditional thinking. What one writer has described as `moral meteorology' still held a place in Imperial decrees, where the visitations of unwelcome climatic conditions was attributed to objectionable behaviour by the local population or their officials. 44 As late as 1870 the emperor in a decree blamed floods, droughts and deficient harvests on unhappiness in heaven with officials, great and small, in this echoing the earlier `moral meteorological analysis' of the Yongzheng Emperor:

We are of the opinion that although icy hail commonly occurs in the northern regions, yet the disasters suffered by the villages of Xuanhua seem uniquely severe, and rarely seen in recent times. It is evident that Heaven Above has been sending signs again and again to warn Xuanhua. If by any chance the local officials or common peoples regard these as accidents due to natural causation then they are inferior people who do not know how to tremble in fear and reflect on their transgressions."

In summary, it may be said that Hart overreached himself in his enthusiasm for meteorology, but his efforts were not totally in vain. Although lacking any formal integrating structure, meteorological recordings at the Customs stations were begun. Fritsche presents sporadic data on temperature and pressure, starting in 1871 from Imperial Maritime Customs stations at Chefoo, Newchang, Taku and Kelung. However, he considered the observations not of very great use, `being very incomplete, and obtained with instruments whose corrections are not known' 46 Some further information on observations made at the treaty ports is available in a recent publication.47 When Doberck arrived on the scene at Hong Kong some use could be made of the archived instruments, and data from the Customs stations were later to play an important role in the development of synoptic meteorology in the region. However, the prosecution of meteorology in a professional manner in China would have to wait a few years more until the establishment of the Zikawei Observatory at Shanghai by the Jesuits in 1873. 

The Established Observatories 

In the Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the attraction of distant parts for students of the botanical and zoological sciences was obvious, as much from the point of view of gainful pursuit as the pursuit of pure science itself. And, indeed, such studies were enthusiastically pursued in the newly acquired colonies in both contexts. The case of the physical sciences was not so clear cut. By and large, exotic locations did not offer an advantage in studying them and their pursuit 'overseas' hinged very much on their utilitarian value. This aspect of the history of science has been vigorously promoted by commentators on ‘colonial science’ in recent times, and, indeed, the argument may be valid, but it certainly needs more investigation than it has received heretofore.48 Before looking into the observatories that had an important impact on the one that was to develop in Hong Kong, it is interesting to look briefly at some other related institutions.

The nineteenth century brought a flourishing of scientific-related activity generally and advances in meteorology became important from a practical point of view. However, it is with a brief consideration of geomagnetic monitoring that we introduce the ‘overseas' observatories. Following C. F. Gauss's suggestion of a systematic study of the earths magnetic field, an international array of monitoring stations was supported by the British government — the earliest example of what would later be termed a ‘campaign’. Under the supervision of Edward Sabine at the Royal Society, stations at Toronto, South Africa, St. Helena and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) — the ‘Colonial Observatories’ — were equipped with instruments designed by Humphrey Lloyd in Dublin. They monitored the field hourly (and for short periods, every few minutes), for a period of at least three years between 1840 and 1850. Meteorological observations did tag along — the temperature, in particular, was required for reducing the magnetic data — but otherwise it was a low priority concern. These colonial observatories were the prototype for later meteorological observatories, notably those at Mauritius and Hong Kong.

There were observatories at Madras and at Bombay but the most influential of the early observatories in the Indian Ocean, and one which could play a role model for a similar establishment at Hong Kong, was that operating at Mauritius. Time-keeping, meteorology and geomagnetic recording were practised at a public observatory on the island of Mauritius from as early as 1831, but it was 1874 when The Royal Alfred Observatory attained the status of a government department and became operational. Its first director was Dr. Charles Meldrum, a pioneer in the study of tropical storms. There was a lot of maritime traffic in the Indian Ocean, and good seamen’s practice was that the meteorological situation should be regularly recorded in the ship's log. Among the important parameters were the barometric pressure, the wind strength and direction, and the temperature. When later reduced and collated, such data, when combined with observations from the islands of Rodrigues, St. Brandon, Agalega, Diego Garcia and the Seychelles, enabled charts, so-called synoptic charts, of the situation at some earlier times to be drawn, which, if without direct forecasting potential, could reveal some useful information. On such a basis Meldrum first established the spiral motion of the wind inwards towards the centre of a tropical storm.49 This study gave rise to the well-regarded ‘Meld rum’s rules' for sailors when encountering such a storm.50

East Asia provided a notable void in the availability of global climatic data from before about 1875 — data which would be of considerable contemporary interest in the context of assessing the status of global climate change. Quantitative meteorology only became a subject of organized study from about that time.

The Philippines

Of all the external institutions that were to have an impact on the study of meteorology in Hong Kong, none rivalled in importance the observatory at Manila, even if the first director of ihe Hong Kong Observatory did not quite see the relationship in this way. By the mid-nineteenth century the extent of the great Spanish empire had dwindled to a few remote colonies. Although the Philippines was the largest of these, it was very much neglected, and education was poorly provided for. There were universities, but science was totally lacking from their curricula. The setting up of observatories under Spanish and French control fell to the private sector, in the guise of Jesuit missionaries. Suppressed for forty-one years from 1773 — at a time when they controlled thirty astronomical observatories — the Society of Jesus was re-established in 1814 and steadily reclaimed the ground it had occupied in the intellectual world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Harnessing advances in scientific knowledge in the cause of evangelization, as they had done with astronomical knowledge at Peking in earlier years, they set about establishing institutions of learning in various parts of the world. The first half of the nineteenth century had seen major advances in the field of meteorology which elevated it to a subject of great practical utility and thus recommended itself as a vehicle for their aims, much as a later generation of missionaries would see medical skills as an opportunity in the same cause.

Meteorological recordings in the Philippines were started, as a hobby, at the Ateneo, the Jesuit school in Manila, by Fr. Francisco Colina in 1860. Colina began publishing his observations in a local newspaper and these, together with the passage of a major typhoon over the city in 1865, stimulated local interests to contribute for the provision of meteorological instruments. These enabled regular monitoring and forecasting to be carried out from that year onwards, and the operation informally became known as the ‘observatory' and Fr. Colina as its ‘director’. The importance of the school as a meteorological observatory dates from 1866, with the arrival there of Federico Faura, who put the Observatory on a firm footing.51 Faura’s first interest was astronomy, and with two assistants he joined a Dutch team to observe a total solar eclipse in 1868 on the 

p.21

Japan

Although not strictly a component of the ‘colonial observatories', early instrumental meteorology in Japan was largely in the hands of expatriates. The country in these early days played but a small role in regional meteorology. Only after the Meiji Restoration in 1867 did instrumental meteorology gain a foothold there. Hakodate Meteorological Station started in 1872. Europeans and Americans, no less than in the Philippines or China, played the lead role in this development, in the guise of yatoi, specialists recruited by the Japanese government to facilitate the entry of modern scientific methods into the administration of the Empire. Previous recordings of meteorological data, by visitors, were much less common than in the case of China because of the severely limited mobility of foreigners in the country. However, in recent years some early records have been located. Some data for Nagasaki and Tokyo (Edo) collected by a German doctor serving with the Dutch colony at Nagasaki from 1819 to 1828 survive, and there is a series of data from 1839 to 1855 recorded in the native observatory at Tokyo devoted to maintaining the calendar. The Dutch themselves started recording basic climatic data on Dejima Island (Nagasaki) from 1845.65 The earliest comprehensive recordings of meteorological parameters are by Erwin Knipping, and date from 1872. Dr. Knipping was a German mathematician at the University of Tokyo and he took a professional approach to the subject. Starting with data from October 1872, he regularly published monthly summaries of meteorological parameters (and sometimes daily observations) and his data were widely distributed.66 He also published some material on typhoons related to those islands. Later, Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, a professor of physics in the same university also started publishing meteorological recordings. The Tokyo Meteorological Observatory was set up in 1875, followed by observatories at Osaka (1883) and Kobe (1897). Storm warnings were hoisted, starling from 1883.

Early Meteorology in Hong Kong

Anecdotal records of some of the great storms in the counties adjacent to Hong Kong from the Song to the Qing dynasties (thirteenth to nineteenth century) have been preserved.67 In July 1841, in the earliest stages of the settlement by the British, a major typhoon struck, for which we have vivid reminiscences68 and, according to Eitel its near-annihilation of Hong Kong brought rejoicing in Imperial circles.61' If we ignore the very cursory observations by Meyen on Lantau in 1831, the earliest recorded readings were made by the British authorities. From day one of their occupation they monitored the basic meteorological parameters and as early as 1845 published in The Friend oj China and the Hong Kong Government Gazette a 'Meteorological Register*. A summary of the earliest data has been given by llo.7" Both the locations and the times where the observations were made changed over time. More devoted attention to meteorology resulted in a network of seventeen stations across the globe, including Hong Kong, under British Royal Engineer officers being established in 1851, later (1 April 1862) transferred to the Army Medical Department. Climate at the time was seen as a major factor in medical conditions. Some of them, including Hong Kong, reported until December 1884, when the operation was disbanded.71 These observations were, it seems, sometimes made in parallel with other observations. The Hong Kong Government Gazette was set up in September 1853, and from 29 April 1854 carried systematic reporting of these observations in the form of monthly averages (at five recording times daily) of pressure, wet and dry bulb thermometer, and associated dew point and humidity for the previous year taken at the Seamens Hospital in Wanchai. A Dr. James B. Thompson addressed some remarks on the climate of Hong Kong at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London in 1845, but he focused mainly on the precautions Europeans should take to avoid illness.72 The first published summary of the climate in Hong Kong seems to be that of a Dr. Smart at the Royal Naval Hospital in 1863, but he gives no information on typhoons.73

He analyzed the local data, pressure and temperature from 1853 to 1858. lie also compared the average of this six years’ temperature data with those reported from Macao by Beale twenty years before, noted earlier, and commented on a great want of accordance’. Seeing that he could find good agreement between current data from Hong Kong and Canton, he concluded that ‘in the Macao series the instruments used may have been less exact than those with more modern improvements’. This illustrates just one of the many pitfalls modern day climatologists have to circumvent in their study of past records.

Quite detailed reporting of meteorological parameters in the Gazette began in February 1861 when bi-daily (9 a.m., 3 p.m.) readings at the Government Civil Hospital (later Government Lock Hospital) for every day in the previous month were presented as ‘Meteorological Tables' and continued, with only slight interruption, until the opening of the new observatory in 1884. Considering that they could hardly have served any practical use in the colony and were presumably offered as a contribution to the cause of pure science, the regularity, usually weekly, with which the data were published is impressive. They were sometimes summarized in global compilations, e.g. in 1863 the average monthly temperatures, as by then established, were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.74 But as with the data from other stations, it is not clear to what other purpose they obtained. To quote one writer: ‘it is possible that the Army Medical Department put them to practical use, but it seems more likely that they were stored on a shelf and forgotten’.75 In parallel with these data, from 24 November 1860 the Gazette every week printed ‘Weather Tables’ (from July 1876 titled ‘Meteorological Observations’) which contained data taken three times a day, at 6 a.m., 12 and 6 p.m. Initially the measurements were of the temperature and pressure as recorded at the Harbour Master’s Office on Queens Road and on the Peak, but they were eventually extended to include dry and wet bulb thermometers, maxima and minima, the wind and the weather, and to include reports also from Police Gap Station, Stonecutters Island and Cape d’Aguilar. From May 1876 the Daily Press also carried a 'China Coast Meteorological Register' which gave data for the previous day at Hong Kong, Shanghai, Xiamen and Nagasaki. There was thus no scarcity of recorded data, but the practical utility of the efforts must be questioned: published figures were never less than a week old, and usually much longer after the event. The quality of the data was also questionable in some cases; certainly the future director of the Observatory did not have a very high opinion of its reliability.76 A summary of some of the results is given by Ho.77 In terms of the acquisition of basic meteorological data the existing arrangements by the end of the 1870s were probably adequate or, at most, required some closer supervision of the instruments used.

What was not adequately provided for was any kind of forecasting, and especially warning of, approaching typhoons. This was illustrated by the case of a big typhoon that struck Hong Kong in September 1874 and claimed more than 2500 victims. In his history of the times, Eitel, a witness to the event, gives a colourful account of it.7x An account of the storm was also carried in Nature, which claimed, inter alia, that an earthquake occurred while the typhoon was raging. This was based on the fact that several public clocks stopped at the same time, just the time when the storm was registered at being at its peak. This was not the first suggestion of the possible association of an earth tremour with a typhoon, but none of the evidence was unambiguous.*0 The prominent meteorologist and author, Piddington, had drawn attention to the need for study of the matter, but his work seems to have been overlooked by the Nature columnist. Some years later, in 1894, Fr. Algue in Manila hit upon microseismic movements as possible precursory signals for a typhoon and devoted a chapter to them in his book.*1 The Manila observatory was doing seismic monitoring at the time, taking readings of a tromometer (a primitive seismograph) every hour. From his own observations on several storms Algue argued that the main disturbances occurred when the storm was over land, and in particular when it was incident on a mountain range. It would be many more years before it became established that microseisms can be produced, mainly by the oceanic convulsions which result from cyclonic storms. Indeed these disturbances can now be used to estimate the locations of typhoons over the sea. It is likely that such travelling microseismic disturbances will act as a trigger for a more significant tremour in a region where critical crustal stresses already occur.

An alternative proposal for the association of seismic movement with typhoons is the proposal that a sudden release of pressure, as would occur when the eye of a typhoon passes over land, may play a similar role in releasing pent-up stresses. The latter hypothesis, now seldom embraced, was especially propounded by Fr. Frnesto Gherzi, a later director of Zikawei, and post-1949 a member of staff of the Hong Kong Observatory.*2 This has been an opportunity to mention, however briefly, the aspect of seismology in an observatory and to note that we will not be returning to it. Although obviously of great importance in places like Japan and the Philippines, in the days before nuclear power stations were contemplated it was realized that little practical benefit to the Hong Kong community could accrue from a pursuit of this discipline. There were occasional, fleeting references to the introduction of seismology into the future Hong Kong Observatory, notably efforts in 1898 from London to establish seismic monitoring. This was aborted, ostensibly on the grounds of the, not very large, cost, but with the hand of the governor strengthened by the directors reluctance to get involved, citing lack of space and shortage of manpower at the Observatory.83 It would be 1921 before instrumentation appropriate to the