NOTES. 



H3 



supposing a meteoric belt circulating around 

 the suu which crosses the ecliptic at a point 

 where the earth must meet it at the time of 

 the annual shower, but this leaves the No- 

 vember meteors still unexplained. Schiapa- 

 relli and Le Verrier have suggested that the 

 November meteors originate in a swarm of 

 corpuscles which move in orbits very close to 

 each other, having a period of about thirty- 

 three years, and elements very similar to 

 those of Temple's comet. Schiaparelli also 

 connects the August meteors with the comet 

 of 1861, and other swarms have been simi- 

 larly connected with different comets. The 

 Chinese annals furnish data which indicate 

 that the greater number of shooting-stars 

 are seen when the earth is passing from the 

 summer solstice to the winter solstice, and 

 this appears to be confirmed by the phenom- 

 ena of the August and November meteors. 

 The ancients and the authors of the middle 

 ages abound in notices of portents, falling 

 stai'S, fiery spears, fiery swords, burning 

 skies, showers of blood, etc., a large propor- 

 tion of which may be referred to shooting- 

 stars. The earliest record so far found is 

 the statement that Zoroaster was destroyed 

 by fire, assigned to 205V b. c, and the next 

 the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 

 1915. Many of the middle-age accounts 

 give the phenomena the appearance of ar- 

 mies and battles in the sky. 



NOTES. 



Mr. Leonard Waldo, of the Thermo- 

 metric Bureau of the Observatory of Yale 

 College, reports that more than twice as 

 many thermometers were examined in 1881 

 -'82~as in 1880-'81, and that 4,552 certifi- 

 cates were issued during the year covered 

 by the last report. The attention of the 

 bureau has been directed to the study of a 

 test for the sensitiveness of thermometers, 

 or for the time required for each instrument 

 to reach its maximum. A sufficiently deli- 

 cate, simple test to meet the conditions of 

 medical practice has not yet been devised. 



President Charles E. Fay, of the Ap- 

 palachian Mountain Club, considered the 

 nomenclature of mountains and rivers in 

 his last annual address. A good name, he 

 suggested, should be individual, and suggest- 

 ive of no other object than the one to which 

 it is applied. The Indian names are excel- 

 lent for that reason, and because in the 



nature of things they can have no other 

 meaning for us than their special one. Per- 

 sonal surnames are not so objectionable as 

 they may seem to be, for, unless they are 

 derived from very conspicuous persons, they 

 may in time lose their associations with in- 

 dividuals and become merged in the identity 

 of the mountain. The names of the " Presi- 

 dential Range " are among the most ob- 

 jectionable of this class, because of the dif- 

 ficulty of shaking off their associations with 

 the Presidents. Artificially formed names 

 are apt to be awkward and hard to natural- 

 ize ; and descriptive names, unless they are 

 rarely well chosen, are liable to degenerate 

 toward the commonplace and irrelevant. 



Mr. W. A. Hazen, in a paper on " Air. 

 Pressures west of the Mississippi River," 

 published by the Signal Service, suggests 

 that the position and extent of areas of 

 high pressure in the region of Montana dur- 

 ing the winter months may have a very im- 

 portant bearing upon the meteorological 

 condition of the whole United States. His 

 view is based upon the fact that in Novem- 

 ber and December, 1880, a permanent area 

 of high pressure existed in Montana, and 

 extended over an immense territory, and the 

 winter was extremely cold over the entire 

 country ; while in November and December, 

 1881, the area of high pressure was less 

 marked and was to the west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and the cold of the winter was 

 likewise very much less marked. Many 

 more years of observation will, however, he 

 concedes, be necessary before any fixed law 

 can be established. 



The death is announced of Professor 

 Leith Adams, of Queen's College, Cork. As 

 a surgeon-major in the army, he received 

 much praise for his report on the epidemic 

 cholera in Malta, in 1865. Having retired 

 from the army in 1873, he was appointed 

 Professor of Zoology in the College of Sci- 

 ence, in Dublin, and afterward, in 1878, 

 Professor of Natural History, at Cork. He 

 was author of " Wanderings of a Natural- 

 ist in India," " The Western Himalayas and 

 Cashmere," "Notes of a Naturalist in the 

 Nile Valley and Malta," and works on the 

 " Natural History of Eastern Canada," and 

 on "British Fossil Elephants." 



The " Gazette Maritime et Commerciale " 

 relates, in its column of marine accidents, 

 a curious instance of the formidable power 

 of molecular forces. The Italian ship Fran- 

 cesca, loaded with rice, had put in at East 

 London, leaking badly. A squad of work- 

 men was put on board to pump the vessel 

 out and unload it ; but, in spite of all their 

 diligence, the rice absorbed the water more 

 rapidly than they could discharge it, and 

 swelled until it forcibly burst the vessel to 

 pieces. 



