INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1875. x li 



One of the most important publications of the year is the 

 "Bulletin of International Simultaneous Meteorological Ob- 

 servations," published by the Army Signal-office Weather 

 Bureau. This bulletin gives in detail the observations made 

 at 7.35 Washington time simultaneously throughout the 

 world. When entered upon a weather chart, we shall now 

 have the means at hand for a comprehensive study of the 

 movements of the atmosphere throughout the globe, we shall 

 doubtless frequently be able to trace storms in their progress 

 from America to England, and shall study the dynamics of 

 the atmosphere on the proper scale. 



The study of the atmosphere by means of balloon voyages 

 has been diligently prosecuted. The only disastrous scien- 

 tific voyage has been that of the Zenith, whose ascent on the 

 15th of April last was signaled by the death by asphyxia of 

 two of the aeronauts Croce Spinelli and Sivel. Notwith- 

 standing this misfortune, De Fonville has resolutely carried 

 out several experiments looking to the solution of any mys- 

 tery that might have attended the death of those aeronauts; 

 and he shows conclusively that they must have died of suffo- 

 cation due to the rapid flow of gas from the ascending bal- 

 loon. De Fonville maintains that balloon ascents may be 

 made, if conducted gradually, to immense altitudes, even 

 greater than those reached by Glaisher. 



A very important branch of the insurance business is, in 

 Europe, confined to the issuance of policies against damages 

 by hail-storms. From a recent publication by the Wurtem- 

 berg Bureau of Statistics, it appears that during the forty- 

 six years ending in 1873, thirty-five per cent, of the hail- 

 storms have occurred in July, and twenty-eight per cent, in 

 June, and less than one half per cent, in February and April ; 

 the earliest occurring on February 9, and the latest on Sep- 

 tember 25. Ten different years are enumerated in which 

 damage to the extent of two million florins was reported by 

 the insurance companies, while five years occurred in which 

 the damages were less than five hundred thousand florins. 

 The districts most frequently visited were the outlyin'g spurs 

 of the Alps. A comparison of the whole series shows that in 

 Carinthia and in Wurtemberg a certain agreement exists as 

 to the variable frequency of hail-storms in separate years, 

 pointing to some common cause other than local influences. 



