66 ANNUAL EECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



bottom of the larscer bore of the well. This smaller hole was 

 about twenty feet deep ; the self-recording thermometer was 

 placed in it, and the entrance firmly closed. The average of 

 two determinations made in this way gave, after correcting 

 for all known sources of error, 37.24 Reaumur, or 115.79 

 Fahrenheit, as the temperature of the strata at the depth of 

 the small hole. The measures at lesser de|)ths were taken 

 with, equal care (by effectually stopping, temporarily, the 

 water circulation), and they show that the rate of increase 

 was not uniform, being on the average one degree Centigrade 

 for 27.8 meters of descent, or one degree Fahrenheit for 

 forty-seven feet. Natxir und Leben^ January^ 1873. 



DISCOEDANCE IX ARCTIC TEMPERATURES. 



Mr. Dove has lately laid before the Berlin Academy the 

 result of his investigations of the variability of the tempera- 

 ture of the regions bordering on the arctic zone. He states 

 that as yet we have had opportunities for studying the ques- 

 tion only through the observations of the arctic expeditions, 

 and through those made at the few fixed stations in Siberia; 

 but the recent publication of longer series of observations 

 made at stations in Greenland and in Iceland affords new and 

 valuable material, with which he has combined all the tem- 

 perature observations hitherto published by the Smithsonian 

 Institution, and especially those made by Professor Cleave- 

 land at Brunswick, Maine. Mr. Dove finds an astonishing 

 discordance in abnormal seasons between Greenland and Ice- 

 land. For instance, the very cold year 1863 in Greenland 

 had nothing analogous in Iceland ; and so, inversely, the cold 

 spring of 1866 in Iceland was accompanied by a warm spring 

 in West Greenland. This strong contrast of the temperature 

 in two countries so near together seems to him to partly ac- 

 count for the very severe storms that have been generally 

 reported from that region, and particularly those noted by 

 Koldewey in his recent expedition. 



Mr. Dove then seeks to find something similar in the con- 

 trasts of monthly temperatures in the northern portions of 

 the United States; but the' result is such that he concludes 

 that " the arctic zone possesses a peculiar meteorological sys- 

 tem." He also very distinctly asserts that we can only think 

 of applying corrections to the monthly means of temperatures 



