At a recent meeting of the Royal Meteorological Society, a paper was read by Mr. 0. HARDING, P. E. Met. Soc., on "The Gale of October 15-16th, 1886, over the British Islands," in which he remarked that the storm was of very exceptional strength, in the west, south- west, and south of the British islands; but the principal violence of the wind was limited to these parts, although the force of a gale was experienced generally over the whole kingdom. By the aid of ships' observations the storm has been tracked a long distance out in the Atlantic. It appears to have been formed about 250 miles to the south-east of Newfoundland on the 12th, and was experienced by many ocean steamers on the 13th. When the first indication of approaching bad weather was shown by the barometer and wind at our western outports the storm was about 500 miles to the west-south-west of the Irish coast, and was advancing at the rate of nearly 50 miles an hour.

The centre of the disturbance struck the coast of Ireland about 1 A.M. on the 15th, and by 8 A.M. was central over Ireland.

The storm traversed the Irish Sea, and turned to the south-east over the western midlands and the southern counties of England, and its centre remained over the British Isles about thirty-four hours, having traversed about 500 miles. The storm afterwards crossed the English Channel into France, and subsequently again took a course to the north-east- wards, and finally broke up over Holland.

In the centre of the storm the barometer fell to 28'5 in.; but as far as the action of the barometer was concerned, the prin- cipal feature of importance was the length of time that the readings remained low.

At Geldeston, not far from Lowestoft, the mercury was below 29 in. for fifty hours, and at Greenwich it was similarly low for forty hours. The highest recorded hourly velocity of the wind was 78 miles from north-west at Scilly on the morning of the 16th, but on due allowance being made for the squally character of th6 gale it is estimated that in the squalls the velocity reached for a minute or so the hourly rate of about 120 miles, which is equivalent to a pressure of about 70 Ibs.

on the square foot. On the mainland, the wind attained a velocity of about 60 miles an hour for a considerable time; but without question this velocity would be greatly exceeded in the squalls. In the eastern parts of England the velocity scarcely amounted to 30 miles in the hour. The force of the gale was very prolonged. At Seilly the velocity was above 30 miles an hour for sixty-one hours, and it was above 60 miles for nineteen hours; whilst at Falmouth it was above 30 miles an hour for fifty-two hours. The erratic course of the storm and its slow rate of travel whilst over the British Islands was attributed to the presence of a barrier of high barometer readings over northern Europe, and also to the attraction in a westerly direction, owing to the great condensation and heavy rain in the rear of the storm. The rainfall in Ireland, Wales, and the south- west of England was exceptionally heavy.

In the neighbourhood of Aberystwyth the fall on the 15th was 3*83 in., and at several stations the amount exceeded 2 in.

Serious floods occurred in many parts of the country. A most terrific sea was also experienced on the western coasts and in the English Channel, and the number of vessels to which casualties occurred on the British coasts during the gale tell their own tale of its violence. The total number of casualties to sailing vessels and steamships was 158, and among these were five sailing and one steamship aban- doned, five sailing and one steamship foundered, and forty-two sailing and two steamships stranded. During the gale the Life-boats were launched fourteen times, and saved 36 lives.