The data from which results have been deduced with respect to the hygrometrical and thermometrical conditions, to the climate in short, of different countries, have very often been derived from observations at single points in cities or districts separated by considerable distances. The tendency of errors and accidents to balance each other authorizes us, indeed, to entertain greater confidence than we could otherwise feel in the conclusions drawn from such tables; but it is in the highest degree probable that they would be much modified by more numerous series of observations, at different stations within narrow limits. [Footnote: The nomenclature of meteorology is vague and sometimes equivocal. Not long since, it was suspected that the observers reporting to a scientific institution did not agree in their understanding of the mode of expressing the direction of the wind prescribed by their instructions. It was found, upon inquiry, that very many of them used the names of the compass-points to indicate the quarter FROM which the wind blew, while others employed them to signify the quarter TOWARDS which the atmospheric currents were moving. In some instances, the observers were no longer within the reach of inquiry, and of course their tables of the wind were of no value. "Winds," says Mrs. Somerville, "are named from the points whence they blow, currents exactly the reverse. An easterly wind comes from the east; whereas on easterly current comes from the west, and flows towards the east."--Physical Geography, p. 229. There is no philological ground for this distinction, and it probably originated in a confusion of the terminations -WARDLY and -ERLY, both of which are modern. The root of the former ending implies the direction TO or TO-WARDS which motion is supposed. It corresponds to, and is probably allied with, the Latin VERSUS. The termination -ERLY is a corruption or softening of -ERNLY, easterly for easternly, and many authors of the nineteenth century so write it. In Haklnyt (i., p. 2), EASTERLY is applied to place, "EASTERLY bounds," and means EASTERN. In a passage in Drayton, "EASTERLY winds" must mean winds FROM the east; but the same author, in speaking of nations, uses NORTHERLY for NORTHERN. Lakewell says: "The sonne cannot goe more SOUTHERNLY from us, nor come more NORTHERNLY towards us." Holland, in his translation of Pliny, referring to the moon, has: "When shee is NORTHERLY," and "shee is gone SOUTHERLY." Richardson, to whom I am indebted for the above citations, quotes a passage from Dampier where WESTERLY is applied to the wind, but the context does not determine the direction. The only example of the termination -WARDLY given by this lexicographer is from Donne, where it means TOWARDS the west.