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with increasing industry. Its usefulness as a medium of direct communication with all parts of the country was singularly apparent and highly appreciated by the President during the riots of August. A series of novel and very elementary, yet practical, stations has been established, wherever telegraph lines penetrate into the Rocky Mountains. and Sierra regions, and from these as well as from all other stations reports of the appearance of the sky at sunset are seit daily to the Washington Office. The number of foreign stations and ships reporting simultaneous observations on its plan of international exchange has now increased to about 375, to which the United States adds 80, with the promise of more land stations. Daily weather maps for the whole northern hemisphere are now compiled daily by this

Bureau.

The preliminary expedition in pursuance of Captain Howgate's plan of Polar colonization sailed for the North in August, and was accompanied by Mr. O. T. Sherman, a graduate of Yale College, as meteorologist. A supply of all necessary apparatus was taken, and we may expect a full record of observations. Among the novelties we may mention the supply of a number of small balloons for the determination of currents of air and of the heights of the clouds according to the methods recently used in Paris by Fonvielle and Secretan.

The Permanent Committee of the Vienna Congress has published the report of its meeting at London in 1876, in continuation of its reports of the meetings at Vienna, 1873, and Utrecht, 1874. A mass of information is given in reference to the various practices of observers in regard to instruments and methods, and the way prepared to a greater uniformity in these matters. The unpublished data now in the hands of European offices, and the investigations in progress or needed, are also put on record.

Of the publications of the Physical Observatory at St. Petersburg we have received only the valuable but rather cutting brochures of Wild on the accuracy of standard barometers and on the accuracy of modern anemometry. Doubtless the regular annual volumes have been somewhat delayed in transit. The second part of Volume V. of the Repertorium, and a supplementary part, were published in September. (See CLIMATE.)

The Dorpat Meteorological Observatory has published the "Met. Beob., 1875," completing the lustrum 1870-75, and also "Zehnjährige Mittelwerthe, 1866-75, nebst neunjährige Stundenmitteln, 1867-75," forming the Appendix to Volume II. of the Dorpat Observations. The authors, Professors A. von Oettingen and K. Weihrauch, have spent great labor upon the discussion of these excellent observations, especially those of the wind. The volume also includes observations made at Reo, in the island of Oesel.

The first annual report (1875) of the Meteorology of India, by Blanford, marks a long-hoped-for epoch in the history of the progress of our knowledge of that portion of the world. Hitherto the Indian observations have been strewn through numerous transactions and miscellaneous volumes, but now the establishment of a central office will do much to concentrate effort and increase knowledge. Blanford's folio volume, of 387 pp., contains a highly instructive review of the physical peculiarities of India, and especially of the meteorological stations. These latter are classified as first class, 2; second class, 21; third class, 65; and rainfall stations, 198. Not only are means, etc., given for 1875, but for many long series of observations; so that the volume is in some respects a summary of the past previous to the start on the new career now opening before him.

A very fine feature of the India Office is the publication of "Indian Meteorological Memoirs," a volume similar to Wild's Repertorium, and containing the results of the investigations made by the Calcutta Office. Of these memoirs, Vol. I., Part I., containing three memoirs by Blanford, is published simultaneously with the "Observations."*

The climate of South Australia is well described, both popularly and scientifically, by Charles Todd, of Adelaide, in "The Observatory and Climate of South Australia." Mr. Todd, as Meteorological Reporter, has been able to make good use of the telegraph lines of Australia, over which he

* Jan. 25, 1878. We cannot refrain as we go to press from calling attention to Blanford's Part II. of the "Meteorologists' Vade Mecum," which is just received, and is simply an elementary treatise on meteorology as exemplified in the climate of India. In this work all the errors that still disfigure our text-books are dropped, scarcely mentioned, and the best thoughts of the best men of 1877 are clearly set forth.

has control, being Superintendent of the Post-office and Telegraph Lines. There report to him daily by telegraph a number of rain and weather stations, and in the volume above named he gives the means and sums for 70 stations out of the 80 that he has established. Russell, at Sydney, also publishes a daily telegraphic weather bulletin.

The French Meteorological Association has begun the publication of a semi-monthly, La Quinzaine Météorologique, giving for fifteen or twenty stations the daily observations and general weather notes. Possibly this may develop into something equivalent to the Monthly Weather Review of the Signal Office, a publication that has already been copied from by the Berlin and the Toronto weather offices.

Professor Ragona, of Modena, has issued a circular calling for the formation of an Italian meteorological association. This is done at the request and with the support of very many Italian scientists, and the new society will undoubtedly be a most active and efficient body.

In the highest portion of the upper valley of the “Kleinen Fleiss," a branch of the "Möllthal” in Upper Carinthia, there have existed from ancient times gold and silver mines more than 8000 Paris feet above the sea. Here upon the Goldzeche Fleiss, at an altitude of 2740 meters, was established in August, 1870, a meteorological station, which, as yet, remains the highest in the world-Pike's Peak only excepted. This station is in the midst of the lesser Fleiss glacier, and a brief discussion of the results of the meteorological observations for six years is given by Hann in the Zeitschrift of the Austrian Meteorological Association.

The report of the Treasury Committee at London upon the working of the British Meteorological Office recommended that ocean meteorology be transferred to the Admiralty, that the annual grant be increased, and that some aid be given to scientific investigations, as also to the Scottish Meteorological Society; also that the Council in future assume more entirely the control of the office. The report makes a Blue-book of 216 pages, the whole thoroughly indexed, and forming a valuable résumé of the present state of practical meteorology in England. The very voluminous evidence published by the committee shows that unfortunately none of those whom they consulted entertain any enlarged or ad

vanced views of meteorology as a dynamical or physical study. In this respect, possibly, the evidence of Professor Airy is most interesting. He testifies that, in his opinion, meteorology cannot be called a science, because as yet we have scarcely taken a step from causes to effects; that, in order to develop the science proper, there are needed more observations from more numerous stations throughout the world, by means of which to construct daily weather maps. He also points out the necessity of studying the viscosity of the air, the diffusion of vapor, the radiation of heat, and other physical properties which require experimental investigations; that, in short, what we want is a theory to apply to what we observe in the atmosphere. Had the Treasury Committee called to their councils some other witnesses than those they did, they could easily have been furnished with those well-established theories that are now recognized as the basis of the true deductive science. We have our

selves for some years past urged the establishment among our American colleges of special schools and physical laboratories devoted to meteorology. These should, on the one hand, train up the experts needed as advisers to large business interests and in the Army Signal Office, and, on the other, should contribute to the development of that deductive science concerning which so little seems to be known by the witnesses who testified before the Treasury Committee, but which is none the less recognized by most of those who actually make the official weather predictions in Europe and America.

In accordance with these recommendations the London Office is now somewhat differently organized, being directly under the control of the Meteorological Committee, to which Mr. Scott is now appointed as secretary. The report just published for the previous sixteen months shows, however, but little evidence of change. Its sphere of work is somewhat increased.

In Mexico, under the Department of Public Works, a Meteorological Bureau has been established, and hourly observations are published in monthly sheets. Señor Barcena hopes that eventually weather reports and warnings will be exchanged with the United States to the advantage of both parties.

The Royal Academy of Copenhagen has published the valuable meteorological observations of the famous astronomer Tycho Brahe. The record extends over sixteen years (1582 to 1597), and enumerates seventy-eight auroras; it has been carefully analyzed by De la Cour.

The Paris Observatory has published the Atlas Météorologique des Orages for 1875. This series of annual volumes now embraces some of the most admirable memoirs that we possess on subjects relating to thunder-storms.

The Observatory at Sydney, Australia, has during the year published a daily weather map, based, of course, on telegraphic reports, and which may be expected to be the precursor of a general map for Australia.

The director of the Paris Observatory seems to have taken the right course in encouraging the enterprise of the New York Herald, which paper has endeavored to lay all Europe under still further obligations to it by showing that storm predictions are possible for Europe a week in advance. This bold undertaking has been welcomed with considerable popular applause in Great Britain and France; but the more conservative and rational students still continue to doubt the possibility of real success in the undertaking-twentyfive per cent. of successful predictions will hardly overbalance the seventy-five per cent. of failures that a careful examination of the weather maps has revealed.

When in 1868 the writer started the Daily Weather Bulletin of the Cincinnati Observatory, with its local predictions, the proposition to furnish daily synopses to Leverrier was gladly accepted by him, and a greater familiarity with the subject, while serving to show the difficulties, has also impressed him with the possibilities. A simple synopsis of existing conditions on our side of the Atlantic would be a decided help to the European students in their daily predictions.

Since the death of Leverrier the advocates of a complete separation of meteorology from the Paris Observatory have made strong efforts to accomplish their aims. Probably nothing will be done that is inconsistent with existing decrees. It seems to be felt in France that meteorology has not made the advance that it should have done.

The rapid extension of weather warnings for agricultural

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