HOUSE WITH METEOROLOGICAL MESONIN, OR SOME INFORMATION FROM RELIABLE SOURCES THAT CONTRIBUTES TO COMPLETING THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY

The article deals with the history of the institutions where meteorological and geomagnetic research originated and developed in the south of Ukraine in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries as well as their close ties with the history of the Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Novorossiysky University. Professors of Novorossiysky University V. I. Lapshin and F. N. Shvedov were those to whom the Department of Physical Geography owed its appearance. Teaching meteorological disciplines and scientific observations were initially conducted by the staff of the Department at the meteorological station of the University. In 1894, thanks to the efforts of prof. A. V. Klosovsky a special Meteorological observatory was constructed in the area of the Small Fountain of Odessa. In 1905, geomagnetic measurements were launched. Research works at the Magnetic Meteorological Observatory were carried out under the guidance of a number of scientists-geophysicists, M. A. Aganin, S. G. Popruzhenko, I. Ya. Tochidlovsky and P. T. Pasalsky being the most famous. In 1920, the University was closed and Observatory was transformed into an independent Odessa Geophysical Observatory. As soon as the Odessa State University was restored in 1933, the Observatory was given back to its Alma mater. However, since the postwar years it has been a part of the Odessa Hydrometeorological Center of the Black and Azov Seas.