Ben Nevis Observatory

the west coast and took the opportunity to spend a night on the Ben.

Geikie recalled that, on arriving at the summit, he was surprised to find William Speirs Bruce lying flat on a sheet of snow. Far from suffering another mishap with his skis, Bruce was, in fact, studying the hundreds of insects that had been carried up the mountain by warm air currents and were now chilling out, quite literally, on the snowfields at the top. Many of the specimens he collected are now housed in the National Museum of Scotland.

Clear weather blessed Geikie’s visit, and the following morning, with icicles hanging from the observatory windows, he admired the breathtaking spectacle of a cloud inversion. The tops of the highest mountains protruded from a vast sea of white mist, and with his geologist’s eye he saw “a phantom representation of how the Highlands would appear as a great archipelago, during a time of serious submergence… I descended again to the lower earth after an experience at the summit which would ever remain vivid in memory.”

As for the meteorologists’ original hope, that the observatory would help to predict the arrival of storms, it seems that definite progress was made. In 1890, Alexander Buchan wrote that “to this important inquiry Ben Nevis contributes invaluable data, with its observations of sudden, rapid, and often short-continued changes of temperature and humidity, many of which are strictly limited to the upper region of the mountain.”

Despite the meteorologists’ diligent work, insufficient funds forced the Ben Nevis Observatory to close in October 1904. The weather station that Bruce set up in the Antarctic fared much better, however. By the end of his expedition he had staffed the hut, which he named Omond House after Robert Traill Omond, with two of his own men (including Robert Mossman) and three Argentinian meteorologists. Now named Orcadas Base, it still maintains an unbroken record of observations.

Alexander Buchan was Secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society for 47 years. He was an early member of RSGS, and edited Volume III (Atlas of Meteorology) of Bartholomew’s Physical Atlas (1899).

Clement Wragge moved to Australia in 1883 to continue his meteorological work. He is credited with starting the practice of naming cyclones after human and mythological figures.

William Speirs Bruce received the RSGS Gold Medal in 1904, and Robert Mossman was awarded the RSGS Silver Medal in 1905. Sir Archibald Geikie received the RSGS Livingstone Medal in 1905. WG Burn Murdoch was a Fellow of RSGS, later Council Member and Vice-President.

Geoffrey N Swinney (2002) William Speirs Bruce, the Ben Nevis Observatory, and Antarctic Meteorology (Scottish Geographical Magazine)

Alexander Buchan (1890) The Meteorology of Ben Nevis (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh)

Alexander Buchan & Robert Traill Omond (1902) The Meteorology of the Ben Nevis Observatories, Part II (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh)

Clement L Wragge (March 1883) The Ben Nevis Observatory (Nature)

Sir Archibald Geikie (1924) A Long Life’s Work: an Autobiography