98 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



The extreme severity of the storm seems to have been felt on 

 the coast of Texas. In its subsequent course it extended 

 over a larger area, and seems to have produced heavy gales 

 on the Jersey coast, and to have had some connection with 

 the violent storms which prevailed on the North Atlantic 

 Ocean to the north of Great Britain from the 26th to the 

 29th of September. The heavy rains that accompanied the 

 storm during its prevalence over the Gulf of Mexico contrib- 

 uted to the large excess of precipitation which prevailed in 

 the Gulf States for the month of September, Monthly Weath- 

 er Revieio for September ^ 1875. 



THE DIRECTION OF CIRRUS CLOUDS. 



The movement of the cirrus clouds has been the snbject of 

 study by Hildebrandsson, of Upsala, who hopes thereby to 

 deduce some results relative to the ascending and descend- 

 ing movements of the atmosphere above the regions of high 

 and low barometer. The observations of Clement Ley show 

 that the cirrus clouds move from areas of minimum toward 

 areas of maximum pressure, and Hildebrandsson has endeav- 

 ored to extend this interesting generalization over a wider 

 field. He states, in fact, that a general study of the clouds 

 over the whole of Europe shows him that while the air on the 

 earth's surface moves in spiral curves, inward, toward low 

 barometer, the air at a high altitude simultaneously moves 

 outward. The upper winds, therefore, constantly make an 

 ansjle toward the rio-]it Avith the lower winds. This de- 

 monstration was in 1871 also made by Abbe for the United 

 States, and may probably now be considered as a general 

 rule, applicable throughout the world. It is important to 

 notice that the same conclusion was arrived at deductively 

 by Ferrel in 1857, and is fairly stated in his great work on 

 the motions of bodies on the earth's surface. 



THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH. 



The interest which attaches to careful observations of the 

 temperature of the earth suggests that the apparatus which 

 is used in Germany should be better known in this country, 

 in order that, when practicable, it may be introduced here. 

 The following is a description of it as used by observers in 

 Hungary. In its general outlines it does not differ from that 



