It need scarcely be pointed out that the storm signals, which are hoisted at our principal ports whenever the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade gives the warning, must not be disregarded. Do not venture to cross the North Sea, for example, with your little craft, if any of the ominous cones or drums are shown. A cone, when hoisted base downwards, indicates the probability of a gale from the northward; an inverted cone (that is, a cone having its apex pointing downwards), of a gale from the southward; a drum, of dangerous winds from nearly opposite quarters successively; the north cone hoisted over the drum, of dangerous winds, first from the northward; the south cone hoisted underneath the drum, of dangerous winds at first from the southward. These warnings and the forecasts of the Meteorological Office published in the daily papers often give notice of coming disturbances a considerable time before one's barometer on board shows any sign, for they refer to yet far-off gales, whose approach to our coasts have been cabled from distant stations—for example, from the other side of the Atlantic.
A good many people are apparently under the impression that in order to foretell the weather by the barometer all one has to do is to see whether the glass is high or low, the former condition indicating fine weather, the latter foul; and that while a rising glass is a sign of an improvement in the weather, a falling glass shows that the
