Meteorology in Nineteenth-Century Society: Volume I: Weather Forecasting and Nation-State Building
This four-volume set of thematically focused and curated primary sources examines meteorology in nineteenth-century society. Knowing the history of meteorology and climatology since their inception as physical sciences in the nineteenth century is fundamental to understanding the causes and historical patterns of the severe weather and climate change that greatly preoccupy today’s society. Thematically focused collections of primary sources support the research and study needs not only of scholars, but also graduate and postgraduate students. To this end, the volumes contextualize and explain the contents of these sources. The collection brings together the most relevant themes in current scholarship: weather forecasting and nation-state building; cyclones, trade, and navigation; meteorology and religion; and weather, climate, and empire.
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Meteorology in Nineteenth-Century Society: Volume I: Weather Forecasting and Nation-State Building
This four-volume set of thematically focused and curated primary sources examines meteorology in nineteenth-century society. Knowing the history of meteorology and climatology since their inception as physical sciences in the nineteenth century is fundamental to understanding the causes and historical patterns of the severe weather and climate change that greatly preoccupy today’s society. Thematically focused collections of primary sources support the research and study needs not only of scholars, but also graduate and postgraduate students. To this end, the volumes contextualize and explain the contents of these sources. The collection brings together the most relevant themes in current scholarship: weather forecasting and nation-state building; cyclones, trade, and navigation; meteorology and religion; and weather, climate, and empire.
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Meteorology in Nineteenth-Century Society: Volume I: Weather Forecasting and Nation-State Building

Meteorology in Nineteenth-Century Society: Volume I: Weather Forecasting and Nation-State Building

Meteorology in Nineteenth-Century Society: Volume I: Weather Forecasting and Nation-State Building

Meteorology in Nineteenth-Century Society: Volume I: Weather Forecasting and Nation-State Building

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Overview

This four-volume set of thematically focused and curated primary sources examines meteorology in nineteenth-century society. Knowing the history of meteorology and climatology since their inception as physical sciences in the nineteenth century is fundamental to understanding the causes and historical patterns of the severe weather and climate change that greatly preoccupy today’s society. Thematically focused collections of primary sources support the research and study needs not only of scholars, but also graduate and postgraduate students. To this end, the volumes contextualize and explain the contents of these sources. The collection brings together the most relevant themes in current scholarship: weather forecasting and nation-state building; cyclones, trade, and navigation; meteorology and religion; and weather, climate, and empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781032548272
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 11/17/2025
Series: Nineteenth-Century Science, Technology and Medicine: Sources and Documents
Pages: 420
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Aitor Anduaga is a scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century science, who has specialized in the history of social, ideological and cultural dimensions of meteorology and geophysical sciences in general.

Table of Contents

Volume I. Weather Forecasting and Nation-State Building

 

Acknowledgements

General Introduction

Introduction to Volume I

Part 1. Synoptic weather science and state interests

1.1 Precursors

1. Elias Loomis, ‘On the Storm Which Was Experienced throughout the United States about the 20th of December, 1836’. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 7 (7), 1841, pp. 125, 128-130, 156-163.

2. Elias Loomis, ‘On two Storms Which Were Experienced throughout the United States, in the Month of February, 1842’. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 9 (2), 1846, pp. 161, 164, 179-184.

 

1.2 Barometric waves

3. John Frederick William Herschel, ‘Report on the Reduction of Meteorological Observations’, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Held at Cork in August 1843 (London: John Murray, 1844), pp. 60-61, 97–100.

4. John Frederick William Herschel to William Radcliffe Birt, 28 July 1843.

5. William Radcliffe Birt, ‘On the Storm-Paths of the Eastern Portion of the North American Continent’. Philosophical Magazine, 28, 1846, pp. 379–382. 

6. William Radcliffe Birt, ‘On Certain Atmospheric or Barometric Waves Which Traversed Europe during November 1842’. Philosophical Magazine, 30, 1847, pp. 482–493.  

1.3 Mapping atmospheric waves

7. Adolphe Quetelet, Sur le climat de la Belgique. Quatrième partie. Pressions et ondes atmosphériques (Bruxelles : M. Hayez, 1851), pp. 73, 75, 91-92

 

1.4 Embracing waves for state interests

8. Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, ‘Note sur le développement des études météorologiques en France’, CR, 40, 1855, 620–626

9. Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, 1855. ‘M. Le Verrier présente un travail fait à l’Observatoire impérial, par M. Liais, sur la tempête de la mer Noire, en novembre 1854’, CR, 41, 1855, pp. 1197–1204.

 

1.5 A new method

10. Angelo Secchi, ‘Di alcuni risultati ottenuti dalla corrispondenza meteorologica telegrafica, e dal barometrografo a bilancia’, Atti Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei, 11, 1858, pp. 389–390

11. Angelo Secchi, ‘Alcune ricerche meteorologiche sulle tempeste occorse nel 1859–60’, Atti Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei, 13, 1860, 231–237, 249.  

Part 2. Conflict: The Eulerian vs. Lagrangian approach

2.1 Synoptic method

12. Angelo Secchi, ‘Distribuzione della pressione atmosferica sull’ Europa durante il gennajo e il febrajo del corrente anno 1862’, Bulletino Meteorologico dell’Osservatorio del Collegio Romano, 1(3), 1862, pp. 19–20, 24.  

 

2.2 Eulerian approach

13. Edme Hippolyte Marié-Davy, ‘Sur les tempêtes de l’équinoxe’, CR, 57, 1863, pp. 640–644.

14. Edme Hippolyte Marié-Davy, Météorologie. Les mouvements de l'atmosphère et des mers considérés au point de vue de la prévision du temps (Paris: Victor Masson et Fils, 1866), pp. 416-417, 434-436, 463-465

 

2.3 Lagrangian approach

15. Robert FitzRoy, Notes on Meteorology (London: Board of Trade, 1859), pp. 1, 11-12, 13-22, 23-25, 34-35

16. Robert FitzRoy, The Weather Book: A Manual of Practical Meteorology (London: Longman and Green, 1863), pp. 102-105

17. George Jinman, Winds and Their Courses; or a Practical Exposition of the Laws Which Govern the Movements of Hurricanes and Gales. With an Examination of the Circular Theory of Storms, as Propounded by Redfield, Sir William Reid, Piddington, and Others (London: George Philip and Son, 1861), pp. 1-9, 92-96

 

2.4 Semi-Lagrangian

18. Francis Galton, Meteorographica, or, Methods of Mapping the Weather: Illustrated by Upwards of 600 Printed and Lithographed Diagrams Referring to the Weather of a Large Part of Europe, During the Month of December 1861, (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1863), pp. 3-6

19. Francis Galton, ‘Recent Weather’, The Reader, 2 (19 December, 1863), p. 730.

20. Francis Galton, ‘A Development of the Theory of Cyclones’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 12, 1863, pp. 385–386.  

 

Part 3. Statistics and the hegemony of the Eulerian approach

3.1 Dutch statistical method

21. Christoph Hendrik Diederik Buys Ballot, ‘On the Great Importance of Deviations from the Mean State of the Atmosphere for the Science of Meteorology’, London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine, 37 (247), 1850, pp. 42–49.

22. F.H. Klein, The Foretelling of the Weather in Connection with Meteorological Observations, (London, 1863), pp. 5-6, 20-23.

 

3.2 Scottish analytical method

23. James Stark, ‘On the Fallacy of the Present Mode of Estimating the Mean Temperature in England’. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 4, 1862, pp. 264–265.

24. Alexander Buchan, ‘Examination of the Storms of Wind which Occurred in Europe during October, November and December, 1863’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 24, 1865, pp. 191-194, 196-198, 200-203.

25. Alexander Buchan, A Handy Book of Meteorology (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1867; 2nd ed. in 1868), pp. 9-14, 339-348, 350-355

 

3.3 International standardization

26. Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, ‘Geh. Regierungsrath H. W. Dove to Director C. Bruhns, Leipzig’, in Report of the Proceedings of the Meteorological Conference at Leipzig. Protocols and Appendices (London: Georges E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1873), pp. 45–46.

27. Robert H. Scott, ‘Meteorological Conference at Leipzig during August 1872’, Nature, 28 August 1873, 341–343

28. Thomas Stevenson, ‘On Ascertaining the Intensity of Storms by the Calculation of Barometric Gradients’, Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society, 2, 1869, 132-136.

29. Report Weather Telegraphy and Storm Warnings, Presented to the Meteorological Congress at Vienna, by a Committee Appointed at the Leipzig Conference (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1874), pp. 7-18.

 

3.4 Eulerian epitome

30. Ralph Abercromby, ‘Is Meteorology a Science?’, Nature, 15, 1877, p. 510.

31. Ralph Abercromby, ‘Weather Prognostics and Weather Types’. Nature, 28, 1883, pp. 330–34.

32. Ralph Abercromby, Principles of Forecasting by Means of Weather Charts (London: Printed for H.M. Stationery Off., 1885), pp. 1-3, 69-81, 99-100

Part 4. State and the primacy of public service

4.1 Galton’s report

33. ‘Report of a Committee Appointed to Consider Certain Questions Relating to the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade’ [Galton Report], 1866 (3646), LXV, pp. 37-41

4.2 Daily weather charts

34. Robert H. Scott, ‘Weather Charts in Newspapers’, Journal of the Society of Arts, 23, 1875, 776–782.

35. Robert H. Scott, ‘The Publication of Daily Weather Maps and Bulletins’, in Oliver L. Fassig (ed.), Report of the International Meteorological Congress Held at Chicago, Ill., August 21–24, 1893 (Washington D.C.: Weather Bureau, 1894), pp. 6–9

36. ‘The Times Weather Chart’, Nature, 15 April 1875, 11, 473–474

 

4.3 Public service

37. Frederic Gaster, ‘Weather Forecasts and Storm Warnings: How They Are Prepared and Disseminated’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 22, 1896, pp. 212–228

38. H.H.C. Dunwoody, ‘Functions of State Weather Services’, in Oliver L. Fassig (ed.), Report of the International Meteorological Congress Held at Chicago, Ill., August 21–24, 1893 (Washington D.C.: Weather Bureau, 1894), pp. 9–13

 

Part 5. Weather cartography

5.1 Diagnostic

39. Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes, Beiträge zur Witterungskunde (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1820) pp. 26, 69, 73, 213, 270

40. Alexander von Humboldt, ‘Of Isothermal Lines, and the Distribution of Heat over the Globe’, Annals of Philosophy; or, Magazine of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Mechanics, Natural History, Agriculture, and the Arts 11:63/3, 1818, pp. 177–181.

41. Alexandre von Humboldt, ‘Sur les lignes isothermes’, Annales de chimie et de physique, 5, 1817, pp. 102–11.

 

5.2 FitzRoy’s charts

42. Robert FitzRoy, ‘Wind Charts of the Atlantic, Compiled from Maury’s Pilot Charts’, Report of the Twenty-Fifth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Glasgow in September 1855 (London: John Murray, 1856), vol. 2, pp. 39–40.

43. Robert FitzRoy, The Weather Book: A Manual of Practical Meteorology (London: Longman and Green, 1863), pp. 413-418.

 

5.3 Meteorographica

44. Francis Galton, Meteorographica, or, Methods of Mapping the Weather: Illustrated by Upwards of 600 Printed and Lithographed Diagrams Referring to the Weather of a Large Part of Europe, During the Month of December 1861 (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1863).

 

5.4 Standardizing

45. Report of the Proceedings of the Meteorological Congress at Vienna. Protocols and Appendices (London: G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode for H.M. Stationery Off., 1874), translated from the official report––reproduced in ‘The Meteorological Congress at Vienna’, Nature, May 7, 1874, 17–18.

46. Hugo von Schoder, ‘Appendix 1. to the Protocol of the Fourth Meeting’, Report of the Proceedings of the Meteorological Congress at Vienna. Protocols and Appendices (London: G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode for H.M. Stationery Office, 1874), pp. 48–49.

47. Mark Harrington, ‘History of the Weather Map’, in Oliver L. Fassig (ed.), Report of the International Meteorological Congress, Chicago, Ill., August 21–24, 1893 (Washington D.C.: Weather Bureau, Part 2, 1895), pp. 327–335.

 

5.5 Global synoptic charts 

48. Alexander Buchan, ‘On the Storms Which Passed over the United States between the 13th and 22nd March 1859, with Remarks on Storms which Occurred at the Same Time in the North Atlantic, Europe and Western Asia’, Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society, 2, 1869, 198–201, 212-213

49. Alexander Buchan, 1869. ‘The Mean Pressure of the Atmosphere and the Prevailing Winds of the Globe for the Months and for the Year’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 6, 1869, 303–07, Part II, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 25, 1869, 575–577, 579, 581-583, 589-590, 592.

 

References

 

Index

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