B. TERRESTRIAL PHYSICS AND METEOROLOGY. 81 



observations referring to a single place. It may, in fact, be 

 stated that the currents of the atmosphere never follow pre- 

 cisely the same routes, nor have precisely the same effects ; 

 consequently individual places on the earth's surface are at 

 one time within, at another time beyond, their influence, and 

 the weather at one point shows nothing of the periodicity 

 that may possibly regulate the movement of the current it- 

 self. Under these circumstances, the observed local readings 

 of the barometer, temperature, rainfall, etc., can not be ex- 

 pected to follow any such laws of periodicity as may possibly 

 be followed by the atmosphere as a whole. The periodicity 

 of atmospheric phenomena can, actually, only be properly in- 

 vestigated when we combine the geographical details with 

 the element of time. Following this idea, Prestel feels justi- 

 fied in the conclusion that certain storms which have visited 

 the earth have passed over nearly the same paths at their 

 successive apparitions, which latter always occur when the 

 moon returns to about the same position with reference to 

 the earth. As this can only happen every nineteen years, it 

 follows that the storms of 1873 are to some extent a repetition 

 of those of 1854. Zeitschrift fur 3/eteorologie, IX., 224. 



CAUSE OF THE WARM CLIMATE OF THE WEST COAST OF 



NORWAY. 



Professor Karsten, in an address delivered before the So- 

 ciety of German Scientists and Physicians, stated that the 

 comparatively mild temperature which characterizes the west 

 coast of Norway is not, as has been hitherto considered, the 

 effect of the Gulf Stream, but of a warm current of water 

 that leaves the Baltic when the cold weather sets in. 13 A, 

 November 21, 1874, 560. 



CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SEASONS AND HUMAN MORTALITY. 



Messrs. Mitchell and Buchan have made a very thorough 

 study of the influence of the seasons on human mortality, 

 basing their investigations on thirty years of observations at 

 London. The greatest mortality is above the average from 

 November to April; falls to a minimum at the end of May; 

 then rises to a maximum on the third week of July, continu- 

 ing there until the second week of August, and falling thence 

 to a secondary minimum in October. Deducting the summer 



D 2 



