speed of fifty or sixty miles an hour, as for | dreds of pounds to a fishing fleet; and instance, that of March 12, 1877; while although the storm to which it referred may others, like the West India hurricanes, do have reached some parts of the coasts of not attain one-fourth of that rapidity of Europe, yet if it did not visit the precise translation. It is remarkable that the rate district where the fishing was being pros of progress bears no relation to the inten- ecuted at the time, the fishermen in that sity of the storm, the slow-moving tropical district were not benefited by the warning. hurricanes being infinitely more violent On the contrary, they were the worse for than many of our rapidly moving disturb- having received it, on the old principle that ances; although the storm already men-"Wolf! Wolf!" should not be cried too tioned in March, 1877, was severe enough, at least in the north of France, to satisfy any requirements. As regards the distance which storms have been known to travel, I may cite a very long-lived storm, which lasted nearly a fortnight in August, 1873, and which was traced along its course by my friend, Captain Toynbee, by means of the logs of two hundred and sixty ships which were in the Atlantic during its continuance. Its history will be found in the last published work of the Meteorological Office, "The Weather over the Atlantic Ocean during August, 1873." This particular storm wrought immense damage on the coast of Nova Scotia. It did not, however, travel as far as Europe, having disappeared in the neighborhood of Newfoundland. In fact, very few storms have really been proved to maintain their individuality during their transit. Professor Loomis, an American meteorologist, who has devoted much attention during the last twenty years to the connection between European and American weather, has very recently published a paper on the results of discussion of two years' daily synoptic charts of the Atlantic. During that interval thirty-six areas of depression were traceable across the Atlantic, that is, at the rate of eighteen a year. Testing these by wind reports from England alone, he finds that the chance that a storm centre coming from the United States will strike England is only one in nine; of its causing a gale anywhere near the English coast it is one in six; while the chance of its causing a strong breeze is an even one. By This brings us to a subject which has attracted an immense amount of public attention in this country and in France; the practical value of the warnings which have been sent over by the New York Herald during the last two years. "practical value" I mean the value to our fishermen and coasting sailors, for whose benefit, more than for that of seagoing men in large vessels, the whole system of storm-warnings has been called into being. It is evident that a warning which is locally unfulfilled may mean a loss of some hun often. Of course, every word that I here say as to the usefulness of warnings is just as true with reference to warnings issued by our own office in London as to those of the New York Herald, but these latter are often very general in their scope. They speak occasionally of a storm reaching the British Isles and France, and affecting Norway. This haul of the net embraces 25° of latitude, from 45° to 70°, and it is an unheard-of thing that a gale should prevail simultaneously over such an immense tract of coast, so that on each occasion the seamen in many harbors cannot derive immediate benefit from the publication of so vague an announcement. It is one thing for a scientific man to say that he can recognize the presence of the predicted cyclone on our coast Professor Loomis admits that the chances are even that he should do so-but it is a totally different matter to prove that a gale which begins two days before, or two days after the time of a predicted storm, is really the very disturbance which left the American coasts. The experience of those who have studied cyclone tracks in northern Europe shows that in winter, on an average, a cylonic disturbance visits some parts of those regions every fourth day, so that if a warning were announced once a week regularly, there would be nearly a certainty of some sort of a fulfilment. The results of a most careful comparison of these warnings with the weather experienced by us during the years 1877-78, are given by the following percentage figures: parts; and when three separate storms were predicted in one telegram, none of which arrived, only one failure has been counted. It is, therefore, pretty clear that these warnings have not, as yet, proved them selves to be of much practical utility to our coasting trade and our fishermen. The question is a most interesting one, and although a satisfactory solution of it has not been attained, we need not despair; but we should attack it from the scientific side, and discuss the results in a calm, dispassionate spirit, and through some other medium than that of letters to newspapers. tain extent by the direction of the line drawn from the point of greatest fall to that of greatest rise. Another theory of storm motion, strongly held by those who attribute all our storms to condensation of vapor, is that the track of the depression is always directed towards the region where the air is dampest. This principle, like that just noticed, can hardly be turned to account in this country for our own practical benefit, inasmuch as the whole of these islands appear to be almost equally damp, owing to the proximity of most of our telegraphic reporting stations to the sea. Other suggestions have been made in various quarters, with the view of throwing light on this very important subject; but we cannot say that the results have met with general acceptance, and the matter urgently demands further study. - Let us now leave these American warnings, and see what we know about the movement of storms over western Europe, which is the problem which most immediately concerns us here. The illustration has often been used that meteorologists, I must now come to the final portion of in issuing storm-warnings, and having to my theme the death of a storm; and estimate the direction and rate of motion on this subject, unfortunately, I have very of every storm the instant it shows itself little to say. As we have not been able to in their neighborhood, are in the position produce evidence of the birth of a storm, of astronomers expected to assign the so have we never been lucky enough to path of a comet from the first glimpse find any one who was in at the death. In they get of it through a break in a cloud fact, some French meteorologists have -a problem which all will allow to be hazarded the statement that storms can impossible of solution. Accordingly, great travel all round the world until at last they interest attaches to the attempts made from travel off it. time to time to lay down principles for Storms have been traced from the forecasting the motion of the disturbance. Pacific coast of North America across the I have already stated that, as a general Atlantic; but these instances are necesrule, the cyclones move round the anti-sarily rare, and, as far as European expecyclones; but this principle requires, for its application to storm-warning purposes, access to charts embracing a very considerable extent of the earth's surface. These are very difficult for Englishmen to obtain, as our own daily charts are very limited in area, and frequently do not exhibit even the whole extent of a single cyclonic depression, much less its relation to the distribution of pressure all about it. For those, however, who can consult such charts it is possible, so to speak, to take their stand at a higher point of view and survey the conditions prevailing, say over Europe, on any given day. If the amount of change in the pressure or of rise and fall of the barometer during the preceding night be plotted every morning on such a chart, it is found that the path of the system for the day does not lie directly towards the region where the greatest fall has occurred during the night, but is regulated to a cer rience goes, no storm arriving from the Atlantic ever travels far into Russia. This fact is, of course, very much in favor of the condensation theory of storm generation, which has already been noticed. The advocates of this view plead very plausibly that, as the moisture in the air is the food of the storm, so, where that moisture is deficient, the storm dies of starvation. We may, however, point out to them that eddies in a river and dust whirls at street corners waste and wane without any assistance from vapor condensation. In conclusion, though it is a humiliating confession for us to make, meteorologists are as yet entirely in the dark as to the reasons why one depression fills up while another becomes deeper. As I have already stated, no meteorologist is able to give a straightforward answer to the simple question, What causes the barometer to rise or fall? From The Spectator. THE INFLUENCE OF CHINA ON INDIA. in deep awe of China, and even, as the Times' correspondent at Shanghai affirms, courts the subordinate provincial governors of the west. The late king officially declared himself a vassal of the emperor of China, and there is no reason to believe that the present one, Thebau, has swerved from this position. The Nepaulese gov ernment, again, so annoyingly punctilious towards ourselves that it keeps the British resident in a kind of honorable imprisonment, forbidding him ever to move more than ten miles beyond Katmandoo, professes itself the humble servant of Pekin, and has just forwarded an embassy, to renew its periodic declaration of vassalage. The terms in which the king demands an audience, published in the Pekin Gazette, are of the most submissive, not to say ab ject kind. The "king of the Ghoorkas" writes, on July 28th, 1878, less than a year ago: "A dweller in a remote corner of the earth, in a distant and barren land, the king turns with longing towards the civilization of the Middle Kingdom. It has been his practice to gain glory to himself by the despatch of an envoy, who was ad WE should be loth to affirm that India is in any danger from the eastward that statesmen would be prudent in taking into practical account. The danger to India from China, if it exists, must be remote, must, if it ever becomes formidable, allow us ample time for preparation, and must admit of being met in a very direct way. The Chinese empire was not organized against attack by sea, but with a view to retain authority over warlike clans in the north and north-west whose loyalty enabled the Tartar emperors to tyrannize over the rich and thickly populated provinces of the south, centre, and south-west. The Chinese expected no attack from the sea, beyond which they knew only of the Japanese, who were contented in their isolation, and never of course expected that their rivers could be ascended by armed steamers, or any vessels carrying armed men. They centralized the national life, therefore, in Pekin, as a point from which to control both the Tartars and the river system, and that mistake gives the Euro-mitted to the presence; and he has been pean powers a terrible hold over their policy. A European army, which could never force its way into the centre of China, finds it comparatively easy to seize Pekin; and that city once seized the empire might be dissolved, by internal insurrection. The Chinese government, though now well aware of this danger, and better prepared than heretofore to meet it, having armed the forts which protect the rivers, imported artillery, and built fighting-vessels, is not likely to run such a risk, except under some motive not yet at present discernible. Nevertheless, it is perfectly true that China, under some impulse of which no European knows anything, is making herself felt in quite a new fashion in the West, and might if she chose render our position in India more difficult than it ever yet has been. Her western army a few years since swept away the strongest bar rier between Burmah and herself, the Mussulman kingdom of the Panthays, which, though almost unknown to Englishmen, acted as as a buffer between China and our own dominions. Nothing now prevents a Chinese army from descending into Burmah, and thence into Pegu, except the reluctance of the government of Pekin to commence wars which may bring them into collision with European powers. That reluctance may not be fully understood at Mandalay, and it is, we believe, quite true that the Burmese court stands entirely dependent upon the rays of his august Majesty's awe-inspiring influence and prosperity for securing peace and tranquillity in his borders." He therefore prays that his envoy may once more be admitted to a personal audience. The form of this letter may be merely compli mentary, and the vassalage, in part, a form; but there is no doubt of the awe felt, both in Nepaul and Burmah, towards the court of China, or of their desire to stand on the best of terms with their huge neighbor. Potentates like the Nepaulese and Burmese kings are not too willing to acknowl edge vassalage, even to far distant courts, and certainly do not burden themselves with ceremonial embassies without very good reason for the expense. It is not altogether pleasant, therefore, to remember that men in this mood, whom we can scarcely influence, can, if they please, admit Chinese armies directly into our territories, and might, in the event of a quarrel, throw themselves hopefully upon the protection of a court which never, as the Kashgar reconquest has shown, completely surrenders a province once its own. The Burmese gate is not so important, as the northern jungles are difficult to traverse, and the defence of Pegu, though expensive, would not involve the empire; but the Nepaulese maharaja could admit a Chinese army into the heart of Bengal, to our very treasure-house, where we have not a fort, or a soldier, or a gun. The Chinese general would not be three hundred and fifty miles from Calcutta, with nothing between him and the capital but a rich, alluvial plain, full of unfortified towns, and of a population which for centuries past has never produced a soldier. as it were with the wave of a hand, swept the kingdom of Kashgar, and its master, Yakoob Beg, and its cities, and its male population into infinite space. These people dislike being exterminated just as much as the rest of the world. They know perfectly well that the English will not exterminate them, or take anything from them, except their independence, and they dread far more the power which, if it moves at all, will destroy them utterly, destroy them as a sand-storm would, and build Chinese cities above their forgotten graves. They dread the pitilessness of the Chinese, their terrible persistence, and above all, their endless numbers. There are points upon which Englishmen exaggerate the ignorance of these people rather foolishly. Nepaulese and Burmese do not know many things that Englishmen know, and are very contented in their ignorance; but they do know some things, and among them that the English, though brave and skilful, are few, and that the people on their own eastern border, whom they see every day, and respect for their intelligence, are as numerous as the sands, possess cities by the hundred, and can waste every year more men than they themselves can raise by a levy en masse. They dread them accordingly, and we very much question if Pekin decided to fight England to the bitter end, and ordered its armies to invade India, whether either Burmah or Nepaul would venture either to refuse, or to betray the secret to the British. We rather think they would not, and that the first intimation of the Chinese decision would be the movement of their troops. We say the awe is very real, for it is exceedingly well founded. When the correspondent of the Times says he does not understand the cause of Chinese influence in eastern Asia, he is either using a rhetorical artifice to heighten the effect of his facts, or he is writing in inexplicable ignorance. Not to mention the great effect of a tradition of power unbroken for centuries, the Burmese and Nepaulese know that as against them, and indeed against any state which touches the empire by land, the Chinese is by far the most formidable power in the world. They have only to irritate Pekin thoroughly, and an army will begin rolling towards them which may take years on its march, or halt for months at a time, but which will inevitably reach them, and not only sweep away their dynasties, but utterly destroy themselves, and fill up their possessions with swarms of Chinese settlers, for practical purposes unlimited in number. If the sea were sentient, the Dutch would be very courteous to the sea. When the Chinese army began to march on the Mussulmans of the western provinces, the Panthay sultan was head of a kingdom smaller but richer, and more civilized than Burmah, with an army which, as the terror filled up the ranks, may have reached two hundred thousand men, and which certainly included seventy thousand fighting men. These men This, then, is a formidable danger to fought desperately for months, defending their cities with the courage of despair; but when the Chinese army stopped, the sultan, the soldiers, and the Mussulman people had all disappeared together, not only overwhelmed, but destroyed, as if the ocean or a lava-flood had passed over the kingdom. There is no doubt that the process could be repeated to-morrow throughout Burmah, if Pekin, in its inex plicable policy, chose to give the order; for the Burmese, though not quite so weak as some observers think, would certainly never fight as the Panthays fought. They have not a fighting creed, and they have doors open to the southward into Pegu, through which, when once fairly alarmed, they would crowd down in search of Brit ish protection. The Burmese, therefore, have reason for their fear, and so have the Nepaulese, who, besides knowing all about the Panthays, know also that Pekin has, India? No, we rather think not. The Chinese armies are hampered, as against European powers, by their excessive slowness. We should have taken Pekin before they were well into Bengal, and have raised in India an army as numerous and better organized than their own. All India would be with us in such a war, and India can produce armies as numerous as those of China, more efficient, and more movable. The Chinese move in masses, and very slowly, and unless they brought mounted tribes into the field, as the late Mr. Prinsep feared they would which is nearly impossible, as their horses would perish in the hills - they would be slaughtered by the weapons of civilization in numbers which even they would feel. But still a danger exists which it is not wise altogether to overlook, and which the appearance of a great soldier in China, or the advance of our own border till it From The Spectator. - THE LESSONS OF PRINCE NAPOLEON'S 66 66 touched on China, might make very real. | itself in loathing for an individual, the We are too much accustomed to think of Corsican usurper, General Buonaparte. the vast masses of China as if they could Now even diplomatists write of the never move; but they have for the last ten western powers "as if they constituted years been moving all round our frontier an indivisible entity in Europe. And last from Bhamo to Yarkund -on an arc of Saturday, sixty-four years after the " usurp quite two thousand miles—and have siger's" fall, the greatest persons in England nalized their movements by some astound- crowded to Chislehurst to do honor to the ing and most disastrous victories. They remains of his grandson, the heir, though will not, we believe, break in, especially as in exile, of his throne. We recognize, of they have a quarrel on hand with Russia; course, all that may be said about the cirbut if they did, well, just imagine Cete- cumstances, about the respect for misforwayo able and willing to spend seventy tune, and the sympathy felt for the empress, thousand men a year, and with three hun- and the popularity of the lad himself; but, dred millions behind him. Chinese are not nevertheless, if the hatred felt for France Zalus in fighting qualities, but they are and the Napoleons had not been dead, the able to stamp out entire nations of Mus- demonstration would have taken a very sulman fanatics, fighting for their lives, different form. The feeling that Frenchand for Asiatic warfare, that means a great men had become allies instead of enemies, deal. and that the Napoleons were friendly instead of hostile to Great Britain, weighed deeply with the multitude, and was felt even by the greatest personages on the scene. Englishman do not, we fear, love their enemies as much as Christianity enjoins, and certainly they do not often respect them, or even sympathize with their grief. That change, the possibility of France and England cordially liking one another, and of Napoleons and Englishmen being friends, is the greatest of its kind that this generation has seen, and may yet have the greatest political consequences. It is much that Englishmen can appreciate and work with France as a republic, but something, too, that they have no inner and, as it were, personal horror of the only dynasty which has even a slight chance of replacing it. England may not, and does not, wish the Bonapartists to succeed; but the extinction of the old halfinsane prejudice against all who bore the name nevertheless adds to her power of comprehending French parties, French difficulties, and French affairs, and it is in that comprehension that the roots of alliance must be sought. There can be no alliance with a people believed to be always plotting injury, or likely, in certain circumstances, to raise a sort of hostile demon to the throne. FUNERAL. THE splendid gathering at the funeral of the prince imperial testifies strongly to two of the great changes which have passed over Europe in recent years, -the extinction of the English hostility to France, and the decay of legitimist feeling even among kings. A century hence, when distance of time has made the years of this epoch seem to crowd together, few events will appear more picturesque than a great honor paid by the English voluntarily, and upon their own soil, to the representative of the Napoleons. The change of feeling will seem to have been so sudden and so complete. A hundred years after it has passed a lifetime seems nothing, and a full lifetime has not elapsed since Englishmen as a body believed France to be "the natural enemy" of their country, as half of them now hold Russia; regarded her people with a loathing which found its expression in Nelson's celebrated sentence; and held her ruler, the first Napoleon, to be a wicked usurper, whose death would be a sensible relief to mankind. The present writer has talked to persons, otherwise fairly informed, who once firmly believed that Napoleon murdered Marie Antoinette, that if he had landed in England he would have killed everybody, and that he was in every relation of life a monster of iniquity, whom it would be pardonable to kill. The hatred of France in England was a passion, all the more intense because it could express The decay of the idea of legitimacy, even among kings, is even still more remarkable. The old idea of the European monarchs was that they must, as against the rest of the world, adhere to each other; that thrones were interlinked; that usurpations were immoral; and that kings not only "could feel for kings," but were bound to feel for them. A republic was detestable, of course, but less detestable, or rather less detested, than a usurper. It |