270 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1884. 



tance of understanding the subject in its widest details as terrestrial 

 physics, and that the study of the equatorial region should be taken up 

 in full force as this calm belt is the basis and motive of the whole atmos- 

 pheric circulation. Whatever may be said as to the importance of 

 weather predictions or cyclone theories or the tracks of cyclones or 

 anti cyclones or climatic and other applications, yet we must avoid the 

 mistake of treating meteorology from too local or empirical a point of 

 view. (X>. M. Z., I, p. 407.) 



44. [The study of the northers of the Mississippi Valley and Gulf of 

 Mexico showed as long ago as 1871 that a very slight diminution of 

 pressure in tlie tropical regions frequently gives occasion for a southerly 

 flow of cold air, which, piling up against the northern side of the Mexi- 

 can Cordilleras, produces a great area of about 8,000 feet deep of cold, 

 cloudy, and rainy weather, out of which gradually develops a storm that 

 subsequently moves northward as a hurricane over the United States. 

 And as a generalization it is suspected that the hurricanes originating 

 in the Middle Atlantic, whether on the coast of Africa or of South 

 America, owe their origin in a similar way to an inflow of cool air into 

 a region where higher temperature, increased moisture, and the forma- 

 tion of clouds having strongly heated upper surfaces, had conspired to 

 produce an uprising tendency. In this way it became proper to speak 

 of the equatorial region as that whose heat was the fundamental cause 

 not only of the general atmospheric circulation, but of storms and other 

 special phenomena, and in this way we were prepared for Koppen's 

 demonstration, in 1874, that the solar heat with its variations more di- 

 rectly atiected the equatorial regions of the earth whence its influence 

 more slowly spreads to distant latitudes. Now that the International 

 Polar Commission has given us such a precious collection of data relat- 

 ing to the higher latitudes north and south, it is undoubtedly incum- 

 bent upon meteorologists to urge a similar and far more thorough cru- 

 sade into the torrid zone, where we need a large number of new stations 

 on land and sea maintained for the whole of, at least, one sun-spot period. 

 The continuous observations needed in tropic seas could be provided 

 for if the i^rincipal nations of the globe would inaugurate, each in a 

 selected district of the ocean in the torrid zone, an exhaustive study of 

 its hydrography, fauna, and ocean currents simultaneous with the ma 

 riue meteorological observations.] 



45. Dr. M. Miles, as director of the agricultural experiments at Hough- 

 ton farm. Orange County, New York, has, since 1881, carried out several 

 distinct lines of investigation mostly relating to animal and vegetable 

 nutrition. The x^roprietor of the farm is Mr. Lossing Valentine, a rich 

 merchant of New York, who desires in this way to contribute something 

 toward the progress of American agriculture. The work on the con- 

 nection between meteorology and agriculture is in the hands of Prof. 

 D. P. Penhallow, who, among other things, issues daily bulletins o;' 

 local weather predictions, for which a verification of 98 per cent, is 



