PHYSICS OF THE GLOBE. 175 



Temperature constitute two important contributions to de- 

 ductive meteorology. 



Professor Nipher sends us, among the publications of the 

 Missouri Weather Service, a valuable table of monthly, an- 

 nual, and seasonal amounts of rainfall observed at St. Louis, 

 principally by Dr. George Engelmann, from 1834 to 1877. 

 There are but few stations in the world that can present an 

 unbroken homogeneous series like this, and it is to be hoped 

 that similar tables may be published for such other long se- 

 ries of observations as we may have in the United States. 

 Such a collection, supplementary to the Smithsonian Tables, 

 would be useful in many investigations. 



A paper, by Otto Krummer, on the Distribution of Rain- 

 fall in Europe, is published in the July number of the Jour- 

 nal of the Berlin Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde. 



Dr. G. Hellmann has published, in the Xetherlands mete- 

 orological Jaarbooel', a work on the Humidity and Cloudi- 

 ness of Spain and Portugal. He gives the hourly variations 

 for 4 stations, and the monthly and annual means for 18 sta- 

 tions, for 12 years. The average number of cloudless days 

 during the year is, for Obiedo, 50; Saragossa, 199; and Va- 

 lencia, 260. 



The distribution of rain over Germany, according to the 

 four seasons, is almost exhaustively treated of by Dr. J. Van 

 Bebber, in Petermann's Jlittheilungen, and is accompanied 

 by four charts, showing isohyetals for each 25 millimeters. 

 He distinguishes, for Germany, three well-marked regions: 

 first, the west coast, or region of heavy autumnal rains; sec- 

 ond, Alsace, the region of heavy winter rains; third, the re* 

 gion of summer rains, which includes pretty much all the 

 rest of Germany. 



An investigation, by Dogiel, published in Vol. XX. of the 

 Bulletin of the St. Petersburg Academy, into the innumera- 

 ble forms of the hexagonal crystals of iodoform (CHI 3 ), af- 

 fords additional reasons for careful investigation into the 

 circumstances that determine the formation of the varieties 

 of snow-crystals. It is highly probable that definite temper- 

 atures and pressures may be indicated by these forms. 



The large number of observers of rainfall in India will sur- 

 prise every one who has not especially looked into this mat- 

 ter. The government supplies rain-gauges to all districts and 



