190 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



that lie seems to have shown that the bright line thought by 

 Angstrom to be identical in these two lights is really not so. 

 Mr. Burton has also measured the position of a new dark 

 band in the zodiacal light, in which light he also finds dis- 

 tinct traces of polarization. 



MISCELLANEOUS RELATIONS AND APPLICATIONS. 



Sun-spot Periods. 



A memoir of exceptional thoroughness and interest upon 

 the Sun-spot Periods in our Atmospheric Phenomena is by 

 P. G. Halm "Ueber die Beziehungen der Sonnenflecken-Pe- 

 riode zu meteorologischen Erscheinungen," Leipzig, 1877. 



Dr. S. Guuther, in a work on the " Influence of the Celes- 

 tial Bodies upon the Weather" (Nuremberg, 1876), gives 

 an excellent historical resume and bibliography of this sub- 

 ject. 



The discovery by Main at Oxford that the annual mean 

 direction of the wind fluctuates with the variation of the 

 solar spots has stimulated Hornstein to a similar investiga- 

 tion for Prague. He has communicated to the Vienna Acad- 

 emy, June, 1877, a memoir on the Probable Dependence of 

 the Mean Direction of the Wind upon the Period of the Sun's 

 Spots, the study of which subject has occupied him since 

 1871. His results are similar to those of Dr. Gould, whom 

 he appears to have anticipated somewhat, and with whose 

 methods his own agree very closely. He finds an increase 

 of 0.00133 C. for a diminution oft on Wolf's scale of solar 

 spottiness. 



Dr. B. A. Gould contributes to the Ast. Nach. a summary 

 of his climatological researches. From the observations at 

 Buenos Ayres and Bahia Blanca, since 1856 and 1866 respec- 

 tively, he has computed for each year separately the thermal 

 wind-roses, as also the mean temperatures and mean direc- 

 tion of the wind. By means of the thermal wind-roses he is 

 able to reduce the mean annual temperatures to what they 

 would have been if the mean annual direction of the wind 

 were the same throughout the series of years. He thus ob- 

 tains mean annual temperatures which are apparently per- 

 fectly intercomparable, and finds that these figures follow 

 the changes in sun-spots remarkably closely. He finds that 

 a fall of 1 C. in the mean annual temperature corresponds 



