Buys-Ballot, CHRISTOPH HEINRICH DIEDRICH

Buys-Ballot, CHRISTOPH HEINRICH DIEDRICH, meteorologist, born at Kloetingen in Zeeland, 10th October 1817, studied at Utrecht, where he became professor of Mathematics (1847) and of Experimental Physics (1870), and in 1854 director of the Royal Meteorological Institute. He was one of the initiators of the system under which, by daily weather reports, and by simultaneous observations at numerous stations by land and by sea, materials are collected for forecasting changes, and his labours contributed materially to the determination of a general law of storms (see STORMS). The inventor of the Aeroklinoscope (q.v.), and of a system of weather signals, he successfully promoted international uniformity in meteorological observations. He died on the 3d February 1890. His works include Changements périodiques de la Température (1847); Regelen van Wecerverandering in Nederland (1860); Suggestions on a Uniform System of Meteorological Observations (1873).