528 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



the functions of the elementary organs of plants and animals. 

 These belong to physiology, and the meteorologist need not 

 concern himself with them. 



2. A physical group, which have to do with the influence of 

 local causes e. (/., the covering of the soil by vegetation, and 

 especially by forests, upon individual climatic phenomena. 



3. A prospective group, which have to do particularly with 

 the judging and forecasting of the weather. 



4. A retrospective group, the summarizing of which for 

 long periods would throw light upon the relations of the 

 climate to the distribution and growth of organic soil-prod- 

 ucts, and show how the laws thus discovered may be made 

 useful in the choice and treatment of crops. 



Of the physical data he says, " To make clear what is the 

 effect of vegetative covering (forests, etc.) upon climate is 

 one of the most important objects of present investigation," 

 and wisely adds that this can best be done by men especially 

 trained for such work. Not weather statisticians merely, but 

 professional meteorologists who are also familiar with agri- 

 culture and forestry are the men from whom the best fruits 

 of such study must come. Dr. Lorenz gives plans for mete- 

 orological observations, and results of compilations which are 

 well worthy the study of meteorologists, though hardly in 

 place here (Mittheilungen cms clem forstlichen Versuchsicesen 

 Oesterreichs, ii., 73). 



ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 

 Influence of Atmospheric Electricity upon the Nutrition of Plants. 



AVe noticed last year the interesting experiments of Ber- 

 thelot, which showed that under the influence of the silent 

 electrical discharge free nitrogen of the air is taken up by 

 various organic substances, and enters into combination with 

 them. This, of course, bears directly upon the important 

 question of the assimilation of nitrogen by plants. Some 

 experiments to test the question as to the effect of atmos- 

 pheric electricity on the growth of plants have been made 

 by Grandeau. Plants of the same species and as much alike 

 as possible were grown under identical conditions, save that 

 one was in the open air, while the other was covered with 

 a screen of wire-netting a "Faraday cage" which per- 



