68 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



notice particularly cirrus clouds. In interior Asia, a few 

 definite observations can be given, and on the east coast of 

 Siberia a few at least not contradictory ones, inasmuch as 

 the existence of cirrus clouds has been noted with varying 

 inferior winds, but without giving their direction. If it 

 should be demonstrated, then, which the writer does not 

 doubt, that the high cirrus clouds, the greatest elevation of 

 which can be placed at 40,000 feet, on the east side of the 

 two cold poles do not take part in the variation of the anti- 

 trades from a west-southwest to southeast direction, but 

 that these elevated masses of ice crystals and flakes continue 

 unaffected in the normal direction imparted by the earth's 

 rotation, the fact will be of the highest importance in giving 

 a more correct exhibition of the total movement of the at- 

 mosphere, and lead to the conclusion that the whole depth 

 of the atmosphere does not find the initial and final point of 

 its motion in the region of the greatest cold, but that a very 

 considerable and more elevated portion moves above this, 

 having this point at the geographical pole of the earth. 

 There would be in this a new proof that the whole atmos- 

 phere takes part in the circulation between the equator and 

 the poles, and that the cause of the movement is not simply 

 the difference of temperatures, but much more the centrif- 

 ugal force of the earth's rotation, in consequence of which 

 there exists at the points of maximum velocity, during the 

 night as well as the day, a continuous upward current, of 

 aspiration, of the trade or polar current drawn to this re- 

 gion, and that this air, with the moisture contained, must 

 again descend. This may only take place in the polar lati- 

 tudes, toward which it moves, and which it finally reaches 

 in its normal west-southwest direction, also by force of as- 

 piration, as compensation for the air drawn from those re- 

 gions. 3 (7, September 30, 1872, 949. 



METEOROLOGY OF THE FUTURE. 



Mr. Lockyer contributes a very interesting article to Na- 

 ture, under the title of the The Meteorology of the Future, in " 

 which he inquires into the possibility of anticipating the cli- 

 matological conditions of the country for years before any 

 given period. He remarks that the most feasible solution of 

 the problem, ascertained from meteorological phenomena, is 



