METEOROLOGY. 383 



therefore virtually an extension of Ferrel's well-known memoirs, in which 

 latter only the simpler mathematical principles are involved. 



E. D. Archibald furnishes English readers with a highly appreciative 

 review of the important meteorological researches of Prof. William Fer- 

 rel. He finds that Ferrel's results are in every way confirmed by the 

 statistical works of Ley, Meldrum, and others. Viewing the work as a 

 whole, he says : " The author may be congratulated on having presented 

 to the world a memoir of such luminous research. When we compare 

 his work with the numerous crude treatises and hypotheses evolved dur- 

 ing the past half century we feel a deep sense of relief at finding the 

 question dealt with bj^a mathematician of ability." [Nature, xxvi, pp. 

 8 and 33.) 



Chevreul communicates to the Paris Academy of Sciences evidence 

 that General Joseph Hubert, the friend and successor of Poivre in the 

 island of Eeunion, recognized as early as 1788 (some ten years before 

 German and English savants) the gyratory character of cyclones. In 

 1818 Hubert got the complete and correct formula expressing their 

 double motion of gyration and translation (several years before Dove). 

 {Nature, xxvi, p. 49G.) 



Bjerkues, of Obristiauia, after devoting fifteen years to the mathe- 

 matical theory of the mutual action of vibrating bodies immersed in a 

 liquid, lias been able to so com])letely master the subject as to devise 

 apparatus that perfectly exemplifies his theoretical results, and shows 

 that the action of such vibrating planes and spheres upon the surround- 

 ing incompressible fluid reproduces nearly all the phenomena of mag- 

 netic and electrical attraction, diamagnetism, and magneto-induction. 

 His apparatus was shown at the Paris electrical exhibition, 1881, and is 

 well ilkistrated in Nature, xxv, p. 272. 



A recent number of the Japan Gazette contains a translation of a 

 work written in 1821, entitled " Ideas about Heaven and Earth," which is 

 essentially an exposition of Japanese ideas on meteorology. Of course 

 this is mostly of the nature of the most primitive philosophy, and it is 

 said that the work represents the ideas of educated Japanese fifty years 

 ago, but that the present generation has entirelj' outgrown them. {Na- 

 ture, XXVI, p. 15.) 



Among the bibliographical works we notice a complete index of works 

 and papers published by different members of the Bohemian Associa- 

 tion at Prague. This valuable work is published in the annual reports 

 of the society. {Nature, xxvi, p. 1G5.) 



Piazzi Smyth communicates to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a pa- 

 per on the meteorology of Madeira. The humidity at Madeira is traced 

 by him to the influence of the Gulf Stream. Observations with the 

 psychrometer and spectroscope prove the climate of Madeira to be re- 

 markably humid. {Nature, xxvi, pp. 47, 48.) This subject is further 

 elaborated in his littie volume, "Madeira Meteorology." 



