98 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



pheric electrification of the air is merely inferential. What 

 we know by direct observation is simply that the surface of 

 the earth is negatively electrified ; and many misleading and 

 delusive statements in reference to the positive electricity 

 of the air are to be found in encyclopaedias and treatises on 

 meteorology. Suppose, for a moment, that there were no 

 electricity whatever in the air; that it was absolutely de- 

 void of all electric manifestation, and that a charge of elec- 

 tricity were given to the whole earth for which purpose no 

 great amount would be necessary such amounts as we deal 

 with in our great submarine cables would, if given to the 

 earth as a whole, produce a very considerable electrification 

 of its surface. And suppose, in addition, which in fact seems 

 to be shown by experiment, that all space above the atmos- 

 phere, and that the atmosphere itself were a non-conductor; 

 then the charge could be given to the earth as a whole, just 

 as a charge could be given to a pith ball electrified in the 

 air of the room. Under these circumstances, all the phe- 

 nomena that have thus far been brought to light by atmos- 

 pheric electrometers would be observed just as they are. 

 The ordinary observation of atmospheric electricity would 

 give just the result that has been obtained from it. The re- 

 sults that we obtain every clear day in ordinary observa- 

 tions on atmospheric electricity are precisely the same as 

 if the earth were negatively electrified, and the air had no 

 electricity in it whatever. Ordinarily we have evidence in 

 the lower strata of the air of the presence of negative elec- 

 tricity ; but in rainy weather it is sometimes positive and 

 sometimes negative. Journal of the Society of Telegraph 

 Engineers, 1874, III., 12. 



THE DESTRUCTIVE FLOODS IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. 



The terrible floods which swept over several hundred 

 miles of the northern portion of the Pyrenees and the plains 

 at their base, appear, in the light of later and more reliable 

 accounts, to have been far more destructive to life and prop- 

 erty than was indicated by earlier reports. The Garonne 

 and its affluents, which drain the larger portion of the Pyre- 

 nees, seem to have risen with such rapidity that at Toulouse, 

 as an instance, a low-lying suburb, St. Cyprien, chiefly in- 

 habited by the working classes, was overwhelmed almost 



