110 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



a letter of merit as the highest testimonial, we will also call 

 attention to an admirable resume by Angot of the organiza- 

 tion and labors of the Army Weather Bureau. In closing 

 his review, he states that independently of the usefulness of 

 the Signal Service in its own country, " we see that it has a 

 still higher claim upon the recognition of all meteorologists 

 by its 'International Bulletin.' This publication is made on 

 so generous a basis, and distributed with such liberality, that 

 it would suffice of itself to place the Signal Service in the 

 first rank of all the meteorolocrical institutions of the entire 

 world." 



"On the occasion therefore of the recent Geographical Ex- 

 position, the International Jury was constrained to decree to 

 it its highest award, associating it with two other equally 

 remarkable institutions, whose titles are, however, slightly 

 different, viz., the Meteorological Office of London, and the 

 Meteorolog:ical Institute of Utrecht ; while these latter two 

 represent the scientific, the Signal Service seeks only the 

 practical, but is also useful to both to America by its 

 weather predictions and its daily labors, and to the rest of 

 the world by its publications." 8 i?, April 22, 1876, 401. 



THE CLIMATE PRECEDING THE GLACIAL EPOCH. 



As the result of study into glacial phenomena in Upper 

 Bavaria, Zittel concludes it to be proved that the glacial 

 epoch was preceded by a period of extensive floods, during 

 which immense masses of movable material filled up the 

 inequalities of the valleys and ravines previously excavated 

 in the tertiary deposits, and thus afforded an even surface 

 for the glaciers that were to follow. Sitzh. K.-B. Acad.3Iun- 

 chen, IV., 282. 



TABLE FOR COMPUTATIOX OF RELATIVE HUMIDITY. 



In the annual report of the commission charged with the 

 maintenance of the meteorological observatory at the Pic du 

 Midi de Bigorre, a convenient table is given by Hatier, one 

 of the members of the commission, for computing the relative 

 humidity from the indications of the wet and dry bulb ther- 

 mometer, when the atmospheric pressure at the place of ob- 

 servation differs considerably from thirty inches. Most ob- 

 servers are either ignorant of the fixct that the ordinary 



