METEOROLOGY. 279 



the 24tli of July to 12th of October; the last raiii is recorded at dates 

 between the 1st of May and 8th of June. [D. M. Z., i, p. 287.) 



85. A. von Danckelman, as a member of the expedition of tlie Inter- 

 national Congo Association, Las returned to Europe with a series of 

 meteorological observations for fifteen months on the west coast of 

 Africa. He reports that the barometric changes were quite slight, the 

 yearly range being 12"'°>. No perceptible change in pressure occurred 

 during the occurrence of the tornadoes peculiar to that coast. The 

 rainy season is from April to iSTovember, during which numerous short, 

 heavy thunder-storms precipitate a great quantity of rain, the heaviest 

 being 102""" in two hours. The thunder-storms come from the north- 

 east ; the surface wind blows from the point where the thunder-storm 

 is. During the dry season the natives set fire to tbe grass-covered 

 plains; these fires continue for months and have an important meteor- 

 ological influence ; the air is always full of smoke ; great cumulus clouds 

 and occasional lightning form over the burning regions, which cover 

 many thousand square miles. The most remarkable phenomenon in the 

 valley of the Congo is the frequent occurrence at night-time of a strong 

 southwest wind ; it begins soon after sunset and occasionally lasts until 

 the early morning hours. {Z. 0. G. M., xix, p. 88.) 



86. The Physical Society of London has republished the scientific 

 papers of J. P. Joule. The present first volume contains about 100 

 ])apers, many of them bearing on questions of the utmost importance to 

 meteorology. 



87. [We have now accessible reprints of the scientific papers of Sir 

 William Thomson, Professor Stokes, Joule, Helmholtz, Kirchoff, and 

 many other scientific names of living men. To meteorology, however, 

 nothing would be more acceptable than a reprint of the meteorological 

 l)apers of Joseph Henry, William Redfield, and James P. Espy. Will 

 not some American scientific association do for us what the Physical 

 Society has done for England ^ 



88. Dr. G. Hellmann has published his Eepertorinm of German Me- 

 teorology, in which he gives a very complete bibliography of the pub- 

 lications, discoveries, and observations made by Germans in the field of 

 meteorology and terrestrial magnetism down to the end of the year 1881. 

 Holding himself to a very strict understanding of the word "German," 

 Hellmann has omitted the productions of Germans not citizens of Ger- 

 many, and we especially miss the publications of German scientists in 

 Austria, Switzerland, Kussla, and elsewhere. Hellmann's work is di- 

 vided into four principal sections: First, a catalogue by authors; sec- 

 ond, subject index; third, index of stations and meteorological data; 

 fourth, a historical sketch of meteorological progress in Germany. 



89. [It was perhaps only by holding closely to this restriction that 

 Hellmann was able to finish his large work in so short a time and i)re- 

 sent it as a realization of a single idea. But as has been remarked, one 

 cannot but feel in using it at every moment that there is here a mass of 



