180 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



the upper and lower currents, as deduced from a great num- 

 ber of distances. 



He concludes with a strong appeal to owners, captains, 

 and officers of vessels to assist him in further studies of 

 ocean meteorology. In an appendix he gives a comparison 

 of wind observations at Pike's Peak and Mount Washington. 



Mr. H. F. Blanford communicates to Nature, July 25, a 

 short chapter on the Genesis of Cyclones, in which he dis- 

 tinctly combats the idea that these may originate between 

 parallel and opposite currents of air. He regards the tor- 

 rents of rain over the cj^clone cradle as furnishing the ener- 

 gy of the incipient storm. 



Lieutenant J. Spindler publishes, in an appendix to the St. 

 Petersburg Daily Meteorological Bulletin, a valuable collec- 

 tion of the Paths of Storm-centres that have passed over 

 Northeastern Europe during 1873 to 1877. The tables and re- 

 sults will afford material for testing future theories of storm 

 movements. An abstract of this valuable paper is also given 

 in II aim's ZeitscJtrift. 



The hurricane of the 23d of September, 1877, on the coasts 

 of Venezuela, is briefly described in the November number 

 of the Gazeta Cientifica. This hurricane formed in the im- 

 mediate neighborhood of the island of Trinidad, moved near- 

 ly northward to Cuba, and reached the central portion of 

 the United States. 



The article on the West India Hurricane of September 12 

 and 13, 1876, by Tejeda, of Porto Rico, which was referred to 

 by us in the Annual Record for 1877, has, we learn, been re- 

 printed in the Annuaire, for 1877, of the Spanish Xavy De- 

 partment, with apparently considerable additions. The cy- 

 clone moved from St. Christopher over Porto Rico, and final- 

 ly reached Florida. 



In the Paris Comptes Rendus, Faye claims that Hirn has 

 favorably considered the theory according to which the air 

 in a cyclone is descending instead of ascending, and that he 

 allows two kinds of descending cyclones the ordinary whirl- 

 wind and the tornado. 



In April, Professor Ferrel read before the National Acad- 

 emy at Washington a memoir on the Theory of the Tornado 

 and Water-spout, in which he gave the formulae connecting 

 the pressure in the interior of the whirl with the elevation 



