454 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1?82. 



ing important contributions to the work of the late Dr. Mont, {yaturej 

 XXV, p. 34.) 



Tyudall's essays on the floating matter of the air have been repub- 

 lished in convenient form, and should serve to stimulate research. Id 

 this important field meteorological observers can probably best promote 

 the study of the relations of climate to disease by regarding or preserv- 

 ing daily results of observations upon atmospheric dust. {Nature, xxv, 

 p.C.) 



Professor Frankland, in an interesting lecture on climate of town and 

 country, explains the chief things affecting climate, such as the direct 

 sunshine, and especially the fact that the warmth of the air, as distin- 

 guished from the sunshine, depends, first, upon the nature of the sur- 

 face of the land and the presence of the ocean, and, secondly, upon 

 the absorption by the atmosphere, by invisible aqueous vapor, by clouds, 

 fog, dust, and smoke. He especially dwelt upon the nature of London 

 smoke fogs due to the imperfect burning of bituminous coal, and in 

 ordinary grates rather than in the factory furnaces. He says that were 

 aqueous vapor alone in the air it would never produce fog, but condense 

 at once to large particles and at once fall as rain; when, however, dust 

 or smoke particles are present in the air the minute spherules of fog are 

 immediately formed around them as nuclei. He thinks that a law for- 

 bidding the importation of bituminous coal, and requiring the use of 

 either coke or smokeless coal or gas, is the only method of preventing 

 the London fogs that seriously injure the health of the inhabitants. 

 {Nature, xxvi, p. 382.) 



Cyon communicates to the Paris Academy the results of experiments 

 on the action of high atmospheric pressure on the animal organism. He 

 finds that oxygen is not a special poison for the organism. Animals 

 die at high atmospheric pressure simply because the carbonic acid (the 

 chief excitant of the vasomotor and resjjiratory centers), diminishes con- 

 siderably the circulation and respiration, stopi>ing the former because of 

 too great lowering of blood pressure, and the latter because of apnea. 

 The heart-beats are accelerated for the same reasons ; the oxygen in- 

 creases the action of the accelerating nerves, while the moderating 

 action of the pneumogastric nerves is lessened through failure of car- 

 bonic acid. {Nature, xxv, p. 428.) 



J. E. Clark states that since 1878 observations have been regularly 

 made at thirty stations in Great Britain on the first appearance of buds, 

 flowers, &c., of a selected series of thirty flowers. The detailed results 

 have been jiublished in the Natural History Journal. The averages for 

 all these 900 observations of thirty plants at thirty stations give an accu- 

 rate method of comi^aring the climates of the respective years. These 

 averages are as follows, reckoning by days from January 1 onward : For 

 1878, 93 ; 1879, 115; 1880, 103 ; 1881, 111 ; mean of all,' 105.3. He con- 

 cludes that the weather during a given period is of less eft'ect than that of 

 the jireceding months. It is to be earnestly recommended to amateur 



