[THE following paper on " Storm Warnings" is one of the latest written by the late-lamented Admiral FitzRoY; and it is to us a melancholy satisfaction to publish it in these columns, where he so often gave the results of his great experience, and where he was so much gratified to see them. He felt assured that his papers would thus come under the immediate notice of those persons who could test their accuracy, and appreciate their importance.—ED. L. /.] " MANY of the Life-boat Journal readers who are interested by the practical results of our recently-instituted mode of forewarning maritime interests when stormy weather is approaching ask such questions as the following:—' What are the principles on which storm-warnings are given ?' " To answer in few words, and not indistinctly, is scarcely now so difficult as it would have been a few years ago, the writer believes, and would wish to prove briefly.

" Considering atmosphere as fluid, having currents of varying conditions, affected by temperature and pressure, always seeking horizontal level, however incessantly disturbed, and not very many miles in depth, —considering the earth's rotation and effects of solar heat, in addition to those of attraction by the moon and sun, and knowing how the barometer and thermometer indicate changes, we see that observations at several stations telegraphed to a centre may show what are the various states of air, and in what direction it is moving, besides other details.

" Now, as air moves in extensive masses, has excessive elasticity, and holds in suspension much watery vapour, the opposition or combination of its currents in temperate zones occasion all their varieties of climate and season under the sun's influence as principal motor.

" Practically, then, in forecasting weather, the meteorological characters of several places are ascertained and compared, whence con-elusions are drawn thus:—Wind blows from higher toward lower pressure. It curves around a space of low pressure. Temperature indicates whence it comes (being higher or lower than usual). Dryness, also, or moisture, besides showing direction, in some degree indicates a change to a dry or a moist quarter. Wind changing to the left is rainy; to the right usually dry; and many other such facts are to be noticed.

" But the chief points are relative positions, extent, and width of air currents, as they pass over hundreds of miles.

" Between them, the southerly and northerly, with their combinations, there are usually very variable winds, sometimes stormy.

" As the limits or margins of these currents have pressures and temperatures less or greater than their central lines, and as their width is proportionate usually to their circuitous sweep around the area of low barometer, two or three stations' observations usually suffice to show, approximately, what is the character and tendency of air streams, even immediately beyond the most distant station.

" By thus theorizing for remote places— using actual measures for nearer ones—comparing high and low quantities south and north, east and west, by knowing the course of wind currents and their eddies (at times storms), we are enabled to look beyond Ireland into the Atlantic, and obtain notice of changes only then approaching.

" Elsewhere it has been repeatedly observed that bad weather over Ireland precedes that of England by about a day, and that winds from eastward are usually northeasterly or south-easterly, not from east direct." We append some facts relative to the late Admiral FitzRoY, in addition to those given in the last Number of the Life-boat Journal for July, page 711.

Having gained the first medal at the Royal Naval College, Admiral (then Mr.) FitzRoY entered the navy 19th October, 1819. On the 7th September, 1824, as a re ward for the creditable examination he had passed in seamanship, when he was the first out of twenty-seven competitors) and also in consideration of the medal he had previously obtained, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1835, when in command of the Beagle, he succeeded in ascertaining the position of the Challenger, 28, wrecked on the coast of Chili, by riding several hundred miles in search of it through the unconquered and dangerous territory occupied by the Araucanian Indians, a tribe hostile to all white men. He ultimately piloted the Blonde frigate, Commodore MASON, to the spot he had discovered, where the crew were saved.

Even as a young lieutenant, he was as remarkable for his practical seamanship in handling a ship as he was for his scientific attainments and studious habits. He always attributed the ability he thus aquired to his being brought up under a good first lieutenant. The value to young officers, and to the 'service generally, to be derived from such training is shown by the following fact.

When the Beagle sailed from England in 1831, Commander FitzRoY sent for the officers into his cabin, and told them that he had never known accidents, as they were called, happen in any ship, except when they could be traced to the fault of the officer carrying on the duty; that tie was convinced this was almost invariably the ie. And he added that if ever in the Beagle a sail was split, a spar carried away, a man knocked off a mast or yard, or a sea shipped on board, he should consider the officer in charge at the time to blame.

On leaving the cabin, the officers generally expressed their opinion that this would be very hard, as accidents must sometimes occur, more especially as they were going to spend so long a time in the stormy region near Cape Horn. But on every occasion of bad weather, care was taken at once to show the officers the precautions necessary in close reefing and furling sails. Great stress was also laid on never straining ropes or spars unnecessarily under ordinary circumstances, so that they might be depended on in emergencies, and what was the result? They were for nearly five years exposed to unusually severe weather near the southern part of South America, Cape Horn, and hardly ever left a port without soon getting into heavy gales, and then returned to England round the world. During the five years, no mast or yard was carried away, or even sprung; no sail was ever split; no man fell from aloft or overboard ; and only once a sea came on board, and that occurred when Captain FiTzRoy was himself in charge of the deck during the officers' dinner; but it was in the worst storm they ever experienced off Cape Horn, and in such a sea that a short time before he had .remarked that, if one of them broke near, nothing could save it coming on board. When it is recollected that the Beafflevt&s one of the so-called 'coffin' 10-gun brigs, that she always went to the south for her work, so loaded with provisions that her copper was under water, and that both upper deck and poop were stowed thickly with salt meat casks, and that she had six large boats for her class— two over head on studs—it will give an idea of the care and seamanship required to produce such results.

Before Select Committee! of the House of Commons, the late Admiral expressed himself once or twice that a large number of shipwrecks were clearly traceable to carelessness.

All who served with him admired his zeal, energy, and self-sacrifice for the service in many ways, as well as his splendid abilities; but above all they were most struck with his extraordinary nerve and seamanship on some trying occasions, when the safety of the vessel and all on board depended on him. On one occasion, the first lieutenant, the late WILLIAM WICKHAM, himself a first-rate sailor and officer, said to one of his fellow-officers, when under a press of sail in a storm (they were on a dead lee-shore, near Cape Horn, with the tops of the seas going over the cliffs, 600 feet high, a mile only to leeward), " With any one else I should think we were going in too far (in trying to reach a harbour), but he always knows so exactly the limit of danger, that it makes one confident he is right. A few minutes after, while there was just room, he gave up the attempt and wore round; of course the loss of a mast or yard at such a time must have caused the destruction of every one on board; but it was for such trials that he so carefully preserved spars, sails, and ropes at other times, as he often told us." Another thing almost equally remarkable was this—from not having been supplied with tender or decked boats, as has usual for such work, he did the greater part of the surveying work in open boats. These, either with himself or other officers, were exposed on these dangerous coasts for weeks at a time. At one time, for as long as nine weeks, 25-feet whale-boats, with provisions for six weeks for seven officers and men, loaded heavily, would perhaps be working at great distances from the ship, and in no one instance did an accident happen. This, under a gracious Providence, was owing to the careful rules Captain FiTzRoY had laid down for the guidance of all officers in boats, particularly in the use of sails.

The saving to the country of a ship being sailed for five years without any damage to'spar, sail, &c., when contrasted with the case of some ships that never used to leave port or make a passage, without costing the country large sums for damage, caused simply by foolhardiness, carelessness, and want of seamanship, cannot be too highly appreciated.

We may mention that an officer who served with Admiral FiTzroy for the first time in the Beagle in 1831, and wai a mate of four years' standing when he joined her, once remarked: " If any one had told me that I was not a seaman when I joined this ship, I should have been greatly offended, but now I know that I never knew what real seamanship was until I saw it in this vessel." Admiral (then Captain) FitzRoY returned to England at the close of 1836, and in the course of the following year was presented with the large gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, as a tribute to the importance of his scientiflc services, and was also elected an elder Brother of the Trinity House. In 1830-31, he offered himself as a candidate for the representation of Ipswich but was defeated; but in 1842, he accepted the post of acting Conservator of the Blrer Mersey, soon after which he was returned for Durham, but resigned his seat the following year. Whilst in Parliament, he introduced a Bill from which much of the ' Mercantile Marine Act' was taken, for establishing Mercantile Marine Boards, and for enforcing the examination of masters and mates in the merchant service. At the request of the late Sir .ROBERT PEEL, he accepted the post of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of New Zealand, which post he held from December 1843 to 1846.

On the 14th September, 1848, he was nominated Acting-Superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, with his pendant on board the JPlegard, 42; and on the 12th March, 1849, he was appointed to the Arrogant, of 36 guns and 360 horse power, an experimental frigate, fitted with a screw and peculiar machinery, which he had been for some time superintending. In February, 1850, having proved the Arrogant in every way, he was placed on half-pay, at his own request, for the purpose of attending to his private affairs, and of recovering from the fatigue be bad undergone. la 1841, he was selected by the Admiralty to attend upon the Archduke of Austria during his tour through Great Britain. In 1851 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society, and in May, 1854, during the period of the Russian war, he was charged with the duties of private Secretary to Lord UARDINCE, Commander-in-Chief of the army.

Admiral FiTzroy was elected a Member of the Committee of Management of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION in 1859. He always took a warm interest in its welfare, and was ever ready to aid in any way in his power to carry out its philanthropic objects. He used to say to the secretary of the Institution, "Your work is of an affirmative character ; there can be no misgiving about the work of the life-boat in saving a shipwrecked crew—it is palpable to everybody ; but in respect to my work on the coast, it is somewhat of a negative character; I try, by my warnings of probable bad weather, to avoid the need of the life-boat." We may add that the Board of Trade, whose able servant he was, the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, the Scotch Meteorological Society, and other public and learned bodies, have spontaneously testified how great has been the loss of the good Admiral to the public service.

We are glad to find that attention is being called to the claims which the family of the late Admiral FitzRoy have to assistance from the Government. Their case is a very strong one, as we have shown above; but a few additional facts will illustrate more strongly how deserving his family is to the very favourable consideration of the Admiralty. Since 1825, three expeditions, each lasting five years, have been sent to survey the coast of South America. The second of these, under the command of Admiral FiTzroy, was most successful and important. It opened up the ' route now usually taken through the Strait of Ma- , gellan, by which the dangerous navigation of Cape Horn is avoided, and it led to observations and discoveries which have made it an epoch in the recent history of science. Those well qualified to pronounce an opinion, say it may be compared to its advantage with any five years' survey in the records of the Admiralty, yet the expense to which the country was put by it was small. The first expedition to which we have referred cost 100,OOW., the last expedition 75.000Z., and that of Admiral FitzRoy only 40,0001. This saving to Government was, however, effected in a great measure at his own cost, as many necessary expenses incurred on his own responsibility were disallowed at the Admiralty. In obtaining proper surveying instruments, all absolutely necessary for the proper discharge of the work he had to perform, he spent 3,0001. Having no tender, or small boat, allowed him, similar to those furnished to the other two expeditions, he was obliged to hire two small decked boats of from seven to eleven tons, to execute the survey in small bays which his vessel, the Seagle, could not enter: their hire cost him 1,1007. Before receiving from the Admiralty a disapproval of the hire of these vessels, he purchased a schooner as tender to the Seagle. Be had her fitted up, and the cost of doing so, and the hire of the crew who manned her for a year, amounted to about 2,0001. His whole expenditure then, beyond the sum allowed at the Admiralty, amounted to 6,100/., for which he was never compensated in any way; in fact he had to borrow money to discharge the liabilities he incurred in the public service.

Admiral FiTzroy's latest and most important services we have described above. A better claim than his family have to assistance from Government it would be difficult to imagine. We therefore trust that their case will meet with the consideration due to the memory of an officer who upheld the high reputation of our navy by his scientific discoveries, by the zeal and efficiency with which he discharged the difficult duties entrusted to him, and by the ability and energy he displayed in establishing a system of Meteorological observations which has already been the means of saving many lives and a large amount of property.