30 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



in another precisely the opposite characteristics will prevail, 

 although subjected to the same solar conditions. 



Even if the direct action of the sun were more obviously 

 recognizable in its general effects, yet, inasmuch as, in the 

 length and breadth of England a mere speck on the earth's 

 surface the greatest variety of weather is commonly expe- 

 rienced, it is surely hopeless to attempt to predict the condi- 

 tions which will prevail in any one country where the solar 

 relations exhibit such and such a character; and short of this 

 no prediction would be of the least use to man. Even if there 

 is the slightest prospect of our being able to do so much as 

 this, of what practical use would it be to know that a storm 

 will rage on a certain day, if it is as likely to occur in Russia 

 as in the United States, or in India as in China? 



Mr. Proctor also takes occasion to rebuke those who have 

 sneered at the labor bestowed by meteorologists in tabulating 

 and reducing a regular series of observations upon the weath- 

 er, and remarks that, even though we may not, at present, 

 have the means of interpreting meteorological relations, we 

 must know what these relations actually are ; or, in other 

 words, we must have those long arrays of tabulated figures 

 thermometric, barometric, wind-recording, etc. if we are to 

 understand the cause or causes of changes in the direction of 

 the wind, in the prevalence of cloud, in temperature, baromet- 

 ric pressure, etc. Although but little has hitherto come of 

 these records, compared with the labor bestowed upon them, 

 and though we may be under the impression that little ever 

 will be the result, yet, if ever the great mysteries of meteor- 

 ology are solved, these tables will have fulfilled their purpose. 

 To cease to make them, he thinks, is to admit that these mys- 

 teries are inscrutable. 18 A, June 14, 1872, 317. 



UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF MAGNESIUM IN THE FLAME OF THE 



SUN. 



Professor Tacchini, one of the members of the new society 

 of Italian spectroscopists, in a communication to the Paris 

 Academy, remarks that since the 6th of May he has found 

 magnesium to be unusually abundant in certain regions of 

 the sun, some of these being very extended, comprising arcs 

 of from 12 to 168, whereas preceding observations gave no 

 arcs larger than 66. Continuing his observations to the 18th 



