The Case of Meteorology, 1876-1908
Introduction
Early Colonial Weather Reporting
The Impact of the Telegraph
Beginnings of Intercolonial Co-operation
The Intercolonial Meteorological Conferences
The Role of Clement Wragge
Towards a Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Index
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| 1. | The federal power over telecommunications is in Section 51 (v), and over meteorology in Section 51 (viii) of the Constitution. See G. Sawer, The Australian Constitution (Canberra, 1975), 48-49.
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| 2. | Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), XXXI-XXXII (Canberra, 1906). 422-551 and 2136-2179.
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| 3. | Commonwealth Gazette, 50-55 (1906) and 68 (1907), 1476.
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| 4. | 'Report of the Meteorology Conference held in Melbourne, May 1907', Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers (CPP) 1907-8, II (Canberra. 1908), 24 pp.
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| 5. | See, for example, Wragge's comments in his journal, Wragge, 1 (pt. 2), (1902), 2.
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| 6. | F.J. Mines, Premiers Conferences in Australasia before Federation (Canberra, 1976), 71-143.
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| 7. | K.T. Livingston. 'Anticipating Federation: The Federalising of Telecommunications in Australia', Australian Historical Studies, 26 (1994), 97-117.
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| 8. | See the extended treatment of the intercolonial conferences by G.B. Barton, 'Historical Sketch of Australian Federation', published before the 1891 Federation Convention, printed as an appendix to the Yearbook of Australia, 1891.
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| 9. | CPD, XXXI, 422-439.
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| 10. | ibid., XXXII, 2136-2142.
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| 11. | W. Derham, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 37 (1731-2), 265; quoted by T.S. Feldman, 'The History of Meteorology, 1750-1800: A Study in the Quantification of Experimental Physics', PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1983, p. 208.
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| 12. | Feldman, op cit., p. 276.
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| 13. | This characterization of Humboldt's approach is due to Susan Faye Cannon, Science in Culture: The Early Victorian Period (New York, 1978), p. 105.
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| 14. | J.R. Fleming, Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 9-13.
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| 15. | Details of national weather services established during the nineteenth century are given in Gisela Kutzbach, The Thermal Theory of Cyclones: A History of Meteorological Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Boston, 1979), pp. 12-13. The practice of issuing forecasts generated considerable controversy and in both France and Britain was suspended for several years; see John L. Davis, 'Weather Forecasting and the Development of Meteorological Theory at the Paris Observatory, 1853-1878', Annals of Science, 41 (1984), 359-382, and Jim Burton, 'Robert FitzRoy and the Early History of the Meteorological Office', British Journal of the History of Science, 19 (1986), 147-176.
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| 16. | For the earlier work, see J. Gentilli, 'A History of Meteorological and Climatological Studies in Australia', University Studies in History, 5 (1967), 54-88.
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| 17. | Archer reported in his Statistical Register of Victoria, from the Foundation of the Colony ... [Melbourne, 1854], p. 411, that he had ordered a substantial number of meteorological instruments from England in April 1853. Smyth's first published report, dated 3 March 1856 and covering the period of eight months ending 31 January of that year, appeared in Victoria. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council, Session 1855-56, vol. 2, A115. Later reports appeared in Victoria. Papers presented to Parliament by Command, Session 1856-57, vol. 4, no. 58, and ibid., Session 1858-59, vol. 2, no. 3.
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| 18. | Smyth, 'Meteorological Report and Diagrams of Barometric Pressure etc. for the eight months ending 31st January, 1856', p. 12.
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| 19. | ibid., p. 1.
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| 20. | Todd, 'Meteorological Work in Australia: A Review', Report of the Fifth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, Adelaide, 1893, 246-70; p. 248.
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| 21. | Monthly reports by Jevons appeared in the Sydney Magazine of Science and Art from its foundation in July 1857 until June 1858, but were thereafter supplied instead from the Observatory by Scott. By August 1858, Scott was able to report to the Philosophical Society of New South Wales that eleven stations were sending him reports once a month of observations made 'in accordance with the printed instructions' (Sydney Magazine of Science and Art, 2 [1858], 118-121).
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| 22. | Argus, 12 September 1856.
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| 23. | See Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1856, and Advertiser, 7 December 1858.
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| 24. | Advertiser, 18 May 1859; ibid., 28 December 1860.
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| 25. | Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 1859. Regular weather reports appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald from 1862, the number of locations reporting gradually increasing from 16 locations/towns in mid-1862 (14 in New South Wales) to 26 in 1864 (over 20 in NSW), 57 in 1859 (40 in New South Wales), and 92 in 1873 (65 in New South Wales); see Sydney Morning Herald, 9 July 1862, 7 January 1864, 26 March 1869 and 30 May 1873.
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| 26. | See, for example, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 1871.
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| 27. | Smalley, 'The Present State of Astronomical, Magnetical, and Meteorological Science;
and the Practical Bearing of those Subjects', Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales, 1862-5, 347-56; p. 356. [Return to page 17]
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| 28. | H.C. Russell, The Sydney Observatory: History and Progress (Sydney, 1882), p. 9.
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| 29. | G. Neumayer, Results of the Magnetical, Nautical and Meteorological Observations Made and Collected at the Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, and at Various Stations in the Colony of Victoria, March, 1858, to February, 1859 (Melbourne, 1860); idem, Results of the Meteorological Observations taken in the Colony of Victoria, during the Years 1859-1862; and of the Nautical Observations Collected and Discussed at the Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, during the Years 1859-1862 (Melbourne, 1864); idem, Discussion of the Meteorological and Magnetical Observations Made at the Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, during the Years 1858-1863 (Mannheim, 1867).
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| 30. | W.N. Shaw, Manual of Meteorology. Volume I: Meteorology in History (Cambridge, 1926), p. 154 and passim.
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| 31. | R.W. Home and Hans-Jochen Kretzer, 'The Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne: New Documents relating to its Foundation', Historical Records of Australian Science 8(4) (1991), 213-243.
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| 32. | Neumayer, op. cit. (n. 29), 1867, pp. 1-2. Neumayer's reference to the direction of the wind reflected his acceptance of H.W. Dove's Humboldt-inspired general theory of the winds, which Neumayer claimed to have extended with his observations at Melbourne to southern hemisphere mid-latitudes; see his paper, 'On Dove's Law of the Turning of the Wind, as illustrated and supported by Observations made at the Flagstaff Meteorological and Magnetic Observatory, Melbourne', Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, 4 (1860), 102-122.
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| 33. | Neumayer to Chief Secretary, Victoria, 15 June 1857; published as an appendix to Home and Kretzer, op. cit. (n. 31), p. 229.
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| 34. | Neumayer, op. cit. (n. 29), 1867, p. 4.
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| 35. | Neumayer, 'On the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Melbourne', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 15 (1867), 489-495.
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| 36. | Neumayer, op. cit. (n. 29), 1864, p. 143.
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| 37. | Todd, 'Meteorological Work in Australia', pp. 252-3.
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| 38. | Cannon, op. cit. (n. 13), chap. 3, 'Humboldtian Science'.
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| 39. | FitzRoy, The Weather Book: A Manual of Practical Meteorology (2nd ed., London, 1863), p. 78 and the charts at the end of the book; cf. Burton, op. cit. (n. 15), p. 160.
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| 40. | Buys Ballot, 'On the System of Forecasting the Weather pursued in Holland', Report of the Thirty-third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle, 1863, pp. 20-21.
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| 41. | Ten years after returning from Australia, Neumayer, by then director of the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg, played a significant role in establishing the synoptic chart system in that country; Wilfried Schroder and Karl Heinrich Wiederkehr, 'Georg von Neumayer (1826-1909) und die internationale Entwicklung der Geophysik', Gesnerus, 49 (1992), 45-62.
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| 42. | Todd to Ellery, 13 August 1864; Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 1.
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| 43. | Memorandum from Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 25 May 1876; ibid., VPRS 775, vol. 3, p. 7.
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| 44. | Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 25 July 1876; ibid., pp. 21-3.
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| 45. | Ellery, 'Report ... to the Board of Visitors of the Melbourne Observatory', 20 June 1876; ibid., VPRS 781, unit 1.
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| 46. | Russell to Ellery, 5 August 1876; Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8.
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| 47. | Sydney Morning Herald, 5 February 1877, p. 4.
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| 48. | op. cit., n. 46.
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| 49. | E.J. White to Todd, 24 November 1875; ibid., VPRS 775, Unit 2, p. 704.
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| 50. | Russell to Ellery, 3 November 1876; ibid.
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| 51. | Todd to Ellery, 31 August 1876; ibid.
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| 52. | Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 28 February 1877, ibid., Vol. 3, p. 68; Ellery, 'The Present State of Meteorology', Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 14 (1877), 10-19, p.17.
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| 53. | Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 28 February 1877, loc. cit.
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| 54. | There was an editorial in the Advertiser on 20 October 1879, urging Todd to issue a map, but it is uncertain when he began doing so. In the report of the 1888 intercolonial meteorological conference (see below), he was said to be issuing isobaric maps daily; yet the Advertiser on 12 March 1890 referred to 'a new weather map to be issued daily', as if this were an innovation.
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| 55. | Cf. Ellery, 'The Present State of Meteorology', loc. cit. Ellery contemplated issuing coastal weather forecasts as early as 1865 (Ellery to Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs, 28 September 1865, Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 1).
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| 56. | Todd to Ellery, 31 August 1876; Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8.
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| 57. | Ellery, 'Report ... to the Board of Visitors of the Melbourne Observatory', 22 May 1877: ibid., VPRS 781, unit 1.
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| 58. | Argus, 26 September 1881.
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| 59. | Sydney Morning Herald, 23 March 1888; Adelaide Register, 27 September 1888.
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| 60. | Russell to Ellery, 27 May 1877, Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8.
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| 61. | 'Minutes and Proceedings of the Intercolonial Meteorological Conference held at Sydney on llth, 13th, 14th November 1879', New South Wales, Legislative Assembly, Votes and Proceedings 1879-80 (NSWVP), 5 (Sydney 1880), 1229-1236. The report's separate internal pagination will be used in citations here; according to this, the passage quoted appears on p. 3.
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| 62. | ibid., p. 4.
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| 63. | ibid., pp. 4, 8.
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| 64. | ibid., p. 6.
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| 65. | ibid., p. 4.
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| 66. | ibid., p. 6.
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| 67. | ibid., p. 5.
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| 68. | 'Minutes of Proceedings of the Intercolonial Meteorological Conference held at Melbourne on the 21st, 22nd, 25th, 26th and 27th of April 1881', VPP 1880-81, 4 (Melbourne, 1881), 1159-1184 (internally paginated).
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| 69. | ibid., p. 22 (internal pagination).
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| 70. | ibid., pp. 22, 23.
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| 71. | ibid., p. 7.
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| 72. | ibid., p. 17.
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| 73. | W. Orchiston, 'Illuminating Incidents in Antipodean Astronomy: John Tebbutt and the Sydney Observatory Directorship of 1862', Australian Journal of Astronomy, 3 (1988), 149-158.
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| 74. | J. Perdrix, The Last Great Speculum: The 48-inch Great Melbourne Telescope', Australian Journal of Astronomy, 4 (19921, 149-163; S.C.B. Gascoigne, 'Robert L.J. Ellery, His Life and Times'. Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia (forthcoming).
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| 75. | 'Minutes of Proceedings of the Intercolonial Meteorological Conference held at Melbourne', SAPP, 1889, vol. 3, no. 47 (internally paginated).
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| 76. | ibid., p. 6 (internal pagination).
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| 77. | ibid.
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| 78. | Sydney Morning Herald, 1 January 1889.
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| 79. | Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 1890.
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| 80. | See, for example, Wragge to Ellery, 19 July 1890, and Todd to Ellery, 29 July 1890, Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8. Todd and Wragge had a public interchange in South Australian Register, 2 January and 13 February 1891. See also Newspaper Clippings (Meteorological), vol. 3, Australian Archives [National Archives of Australia], Adelaide, AP810.
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| 81. | 'Minutes of Proceedings ...' (op. cit., n. 75), p. 7.
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| 82. | ibid., p. 8.
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| 83. | ibid., p. 12.
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| 84. | ibid., p. 13.
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| 85. | Wragge, 'A Brief Account of the Work and Aims of the Chief Weather Bureau, Brisbane', Proceedings and Transactions of the Queensland Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, 7 (1891-92), 55-64.
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| 86. | Wragge, 'How I Make My Weather Forecasts—II', Review of Reviews, 20 November 1894, pp. 290-2, p. 290.
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| 87. | ibid., p. 291; also the first part of the article, ibid., 20 September 1894, pp. 225-9, at p. 226, and Wragge, 'The Work of the Chief Weather Bureau of Australasia', The Antipodean, 1897, pp. 81-88.
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| 88. | Wragge, 'A Brief Account ...' (op. cit., n. 85); W.J. Gibbs, The Origins of Australian Meteorology (Canberra, 1975), pp. 24-27.
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| 89. | Meteorology in Tasmania: Mr Wragge's Report (Launceston, 1896).
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| 90. | M. Higgins, 'Wragge's Summit Station: The Mount Kosciusko Weather Observatory, 1897-1902', Canberra Historical Journal, new series, no. 20 (September 1987), 3-15.
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| 91. | Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1900.
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| 92. | 'Interstate Astronomical and Meteorological Conference', VPP, 1905, Legislative Assembly, vol. Ill, pp. 9-10 (internal pagination). Todd's records are in two large volumes, 'Weather forecasts for S. Australia (1891-1898)', D4505/1, Australian Archives [National Archives of Australia], Adelaide.
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| 93. | Official Report of the Debates of the Australa-sian Federal Convention, Adelaide 1897, III (Sydney, 1986), 775-6.
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| 94. | CPD, XXXII, 422-551 and XXXII, 2136-2179, passim.
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| 95. | Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 778, Unit 1, p. 7.
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| 96. | CPD, XXXII, 423-4, and D.I. Wright, Shadow of Dispute: Aspects of Commonwealth-State Relations, 1901-1910 (Canberra, 1970), pp. 80-83.
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| 97. | Wragge: Meteorological, Geographical and Popular Scientific Gazette for the People of the Southern Hemisphere: The Official Journal of the Central Weather Bureau—Copies of vol. 1, nos. 23 (18 December 1902) to 52 (9 July 1903) in the Oxley Library, Brisbane, with earlier issues in the National Library of Australia, Canberra.
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| 98. | Gibbs, op. cit. (n. 88).
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| 99. | CPD, loc. cit., and Wright, loc. cit. (n. 96).
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| 100. | 'Interstate Astronomical and Meteorological Conference', op. cit. (n. 92), 14 pp.
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| 101. | ibid., p. 8-10.
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| 102. | See above, n. 92.
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| 103. | 'Interstate Astronomical and Meteorological Conference', op. cit. (n. 92), pp. 12-13.
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| 104. | ibid., pp. 13-14.
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| 105. | CPD, XXXI, 430-434.
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| 106. | R. Love, 'Science and Government in Australia, 1905-14: Geoffrey Duffield and the Foundation of the Commonwealth Solar Observatory', Historical Records of Australian Science, 6(2) (1985), 171-188; R. Bhathal and G. White, Under the Southern Cross: A Brief History of Astronomy in Australia (Sydney, 1991), p. 32.
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| 107. | We owe this insight to an unpublished Honours essay by S. Bassat, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, 1986.
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| 108. | CPD, XXXII, 2142-2146.
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| 109. | 'Report of Meteorological Conference held in Melbourne May, 1907', Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, Session 1907-8, 2, 1203-1226 (internally paginated).
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| 110. | op. cit., n. 92, pp. 10, 14.
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| 111. | op. cit., n. 109, p. 15 (internal pagination).
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| 112. | J. Gardiner, 'Stormy Weather: A History of the Bureau of Meteorology', MSc research report, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, 1993.
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