xlii GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



In connection with this subject, we note the announcement 

 recently received by us of the death, on the 18th of March, 

 of J. Prettncr, who, although director of an extensive manu- 

 factory of white-lead, found time to carry out most excellent 

 climatological investigations in reference to his own country, 

 and whose work on Carinthia has been quoted in the preced- 

 ing sentences. 



The vexed question of the influence of forests upon rain- 

 fall has been the subject of study of Fautrat and Sartiaux, 

 whose observations have been made especially in the forest 

 of Hachette, France. Their instruments were placed above 

 the tops of the trees in the midst of the forest, which covers 

 twelve thousand acres, and also at a similar elevation above 

 the surface of adjoining portions of cleared land. The total 

 rainfall over the forest was always larger than that over the 

 cleared land ; whence they concluded it to be demonstrated 

 that forests form a vast apparatus for the condensation of 

 moisture, and that there is more rain upon them than upon 

 open land. We fear, however, that this conclusion will not 

 bear the test of a very slight criticism, notwithstanding the 

 value that must attach to the observations themselves. 



Rev. C. Dade has examined the record for forty-one years 

 of the weather in Canada with reference to the truthfulness 

 of the popular saying, " Saturday's moon, the winds full ; nev- 

 er was fair, and never will." He finds that the number of 

 days of clear weather during the twenty days after a Satur- 

 day's full moon is quite the same as the number of days of 

 clear weather for twenty days after a Saturday's new moon. 

 The popular saying is therefore completely contradicted by 

 actual observations ; and further investigations into the con- 

 nection between the phases ofthe-moon and the weather will 

 only confirm that conclusion which has so frequently been 

 drawn by previous investigators that there is no perceptible 

 connection between the moon and the weather. 



PHYSICS. 



The progress in Physics during the year has been marked. 

 In General Physics, Clerk-Maxwell's lecture before the Lon- 

 don Chemical Society upon the dynamical evidence of the 

 molecular constitution of matter is to be noted, since it pre- 

 sents in an admirable way the conclusions which have been 



