ne, and good hope
established that a continuance of patient inquiry will be rewarded by
still further discoveries. To take a single result, it may be mentioned,
that a careful study of the thermometer has shown that a descent of the
temperature of London from forty-five to thirty-two degrees, generally
kills about 300 persons. They may not all die in the very week when the
loss of warmth takes place, but the number of deaths is found to
increase to that extent over the previous average within a short period
after the change. The fall of temperature, in truth, kills them as
certainly as a well-aimed cannon-shot. Our changing climate, or
deficient food and shelter, has prepared them for the final stroke, but
they actually die at last of the weather.

Before 1838, several European states, less apt than ourselves to talk
about the weather, had taken it up as a study, and had made various
contributions to the general knowledge of the subject; but in that year
England began to act. The officials who now and then emerge from the
Admiralty under the title of the "Board of Visitors," to see what is in
progress at the Greenwich Observatory, were reminded by Mr. Airy, the
astronomer royal, that much good might be done by pursuing a course of
magnetic and meteorological observations. The officials "listened and
believed."

The following year saw a wooden fence pushed out behind the Observatory
walls, in the direction of Blackheath, and soon afterward a few
low-roofed, unpainted, wooden buildings were dotted over the inclosure.
These structures are small enough and humble enough to outward view, yet
they contain some most beautifully-constructed instruments, and have
been the scene of a series of observations and discoveries of the
greatest interest and value. The stray holiday visitor to Greenwich
Park, who feels tempted to look over the wooden paling, sees only a
series of deal sheds, upon a rough grass-plat; a mast some eighty feet
high, steadied by ropes, and having a lantern at the top, and a windlass
below; and if he looks closer, he perceives a small inner inclosure,
surrounded by a dwarf fence; an upright stand, with a movable top,
sheltering a collection of thermometers; and here and there a pile of
planks and unused partitioning, that helps to give the place an
appearance of temporary expediency, an aspect something between a
collection of emigrants' cottages and the yard of a dealer in
second-hand building materials. Bu