1919] METEOROLOGY. 619 



of years to ensile grape shoots cut soon after the grapes have been picked and 

 while still in leaf. The silage thus obtained, when subjected to distillation, 

 was found to yield from one to two per cent of alcohol, consisting of 94.8 per 

 cent ethyl and 5.2 per cent methyl alcohol. The stems yielded a slightly larger 

 amount of alcohol than the leaves. The mother liquor left after distillation 

 contained tartaric acid in the proportion of 1.3 per cent in the stems and 1.68 

 per cent in the leaves. 



A simplified process for the preparation of gluconic acid, A. Herzfeld 

 and G. Lenart (Ztschr. Ver. Deut. Zuckerindus., 1919, No. 758, II, pp. 122-128).— 

 In the method proposed, one part of glucose dissolved in five parts of water is 

 shaken with one part of bromin for a number of hours, and after standing for 

 24 hours is distilled in vacuo until the liquid is colorless. The residue diluted 

 with water is treated with the calculated amount of sodium carbonate to 

 neutralize the hydrobromic acid, and in the hot with an excess of calcium 

 carbonate to bind the gluconic acid. On filtering and cooling, the calcium salt 

 of gluconic acid crystallizes out and can be purified by recrystallization from 

 a water solution. 



The method was developed with a view to utilizing the resulting gluconic 

 acid as a substitute for cane sugar. 



An important consequence of the industrial synthesis of ammonia, G. 

 Claude {Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. [Paris], 168 (1919), No. 20, pp. 1001, 1002).— 

 The author suggests the advisability of transforming synthetic ammonia 

 into ammonium chlorid by the Solvay process of manufacturing sodium carbon- 

 ate, and using the ammonium chlorid thus formed as a fertilizer. 



The advantages are pointed out of this transformation as compared with the 

 manufacture of ammonium sulphate for like purposes. 



METEOROLOGY. 



The climate of Liberia and its effect on man, E. Ross (Geogr. Rev., 7 

 (1919), No. 6, pp. 387-402, figs. 4). — The author summarizes the limited meteoro- 

 logical data available, consisting mainly of observations by himself and L. A. 

 Hurt, on temperature, pressure and precipitation at Schiefflin, Liberia, from 

 May, 1913, to October, 1915, inclusive, and by the German-South American 

 Telegraph Company at Monrovia from January, 1915, to July, 1916, inclusive. 



The mean annual temperature calculated from these records was 78.5° F. 

 The warmest month was March, 80.4°, and the coolest months, July and 

 August, 76.4°. The highest recorded shade temperature was 93°. " The rainy 

 season occupied about seven months of the year, from mid-April to mid-No- 

 vember. During these seven months the precipitation was 170 in. out of the 

 annual total of 179.5 in. . . . The period of longest drought ran from Decem- 

 ber 28, 1913, to February 19, 1914 — a total of 54 days, during which time 0.1 

 in. of rain fell on the thirty-second day. During July and August there is a 

 period of lessened precipitation known locally as the ' middle drys.' . . . 



" The sensible temperatures of the Liberian coast are not so high as those 

 of many places in intermediate latitudes. . . . Yet, while the heat is not so 

 extremely and sharply oppressive during a given day or week as may be the 

 case in other and more temperate regions, it is much more dangerous in its 

 steady persistence and the cumulative effect is extremely enervating. Insola- 

 tion values are exceedingly high. . . . Negligent or ignorant exposure by a 

 European of a bare head to the sun for periods of 2, 5, 10 minutes, and the 

 like, has resulted at once in prolonged, pernicious fevers and sometimes in 

 death." 



