ABSTRACTS 



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 this issue. 



ASTROPHYSICS. — Report on the astrophy steal Observatory, Smith- 

 sonian Institution, for year ending June 30, 1912. C. G. Abbot. 



The year has been notable for expeditions to Algeria and California 

 to test the supposed variability of the sun by making simultaneously at 

 these two widely separated stations spectrobolometric determinations 

 of the solar constant of radiation. The measurements in Algeria agree 

 with earlier ones at Washington and Mount Whitney and indicate that 

 Mount Wilson values are systematically a little low. Apart from this 

 systematic error the average accidental differences between Algerian 

 and Mount Wilson determinations were only 1.2 per cent, indicating an 

 average accidental error of a single solar constant determination at one 

 station of only 0.9 per cent. So far as yet reduced, high solar constant 

 values obtained in Algeria coincide with high values at Mount Wilson and 

 vice versa. A solar variation of 4 per cent was indicated at both stations 

 in the first half of September, 1911. Many values remain to be com- 

 puted, but it can now hardly be doubted that the outcome will prove 

 conclusively the irregular short-period variability of the sun. 



Numerous copies of the silver disk pyrheliometer have been stand- 

 ardized and sent out, mainly to foreign governmental meteorological 

 services. 



Valuable results have been secured in the research on the transmission 

 of radiation through atmospheric water vapor. An accurate method 

 of estimating the total water vapor contents of the atmosphere between 

 the observer and the sun has been devised by Mr. Fowle. C. G. A. 



METEOROLOGY.— ^^?/2osp/ienc studies. J. W. Sanstrom. Bulle- 

 tin of the Mount Weather Observatory, 5: 3-51. 1912. 

 The first part of this paper is devoted to a number of fundamental or 

 general principles in meteorology, all of which are minutely and clearly 



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