METEOROLOGT. 385 



perature is 58<^ in January, and the maximum 79° in August. The mean 

 annual rainfall is 8.12 inches. During these seven and a half years, on 

 thirteen occasions the rainfall for one day exceeded an inch. On ad- 

 vancing from the Mediterranean southward into the interior the rainfall 

 becomes less, the air becomes drier and the sky clearer, the sun's heat 

 stronger, the nights cooler. {Nature^ xxvi, p. 339.) 



In reference to oceanic influences upon climate, Eev. Samuel Haugh- 

 tou writes : 



"The Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic, so far from 'feuding off' 

 imaginary cold-water streams from the polar regions, is the cause of 

 their existence. If there were no Gulf Stream, there could be no Labra- 

 dor current of cold water running south. The same statement is true 

 of the Kuro-Siwo of the North Pacific, of the Brazilian current of the 

 South Atlantic, and of the Mozambique current of the Indian Ocean. 



"If the globe were covered with water, or in the conditiou of an archi- 

 pelago, pretty uniformly distributed, there would be no exchange be- 

 tween the tropics and the poles, and consequently no effect upon climate. 

 Within the tropics there would be a broad, slow current of warm water 

 moving from east to west, and producing no effect upon climate. In 

 the temperate zones there would be in the northern hemisphere a feeble 

 interchange of southwesterly and northeasterly currents, and in the 

 southern hemisphere a similar interchange of northwesterly and south- 

 easterly currents, both incapable of affecting climate to any sensible 

 degree. 



"If a north and south barrier be constructed to the westward of a 

 locality like the west of Europe, such a barrier as North and South 

 America affords, a gulf stream is at once formed and a corresponding 

 Labrador current running in the opposite direction. The effect of the 

 Gulf Stream is to raise the temperature of the west of Europe to its 

 maximum, and the effect of the Labrador current is to depress the tem- 

 perature of the east coast of North America to its minimum. 



"It is impossible to suggest any rearrangement of land and water 

 which shall sensibly raise the temperature of the west of Europe or sensi- 

 bly depress the temperature of the east of North America.''^ [Nature, 1880, 

 xxiii, pp. 98, 99.) 



In reviewing the daily simultaneous weather maps of the northern 

 hemisphere and the accompanying monthly means, as published by the 

 Army Signal Office, Nature says: "The questions which a perusal of 

 these maps raises are of the first importance, whether we consider the 

 atmospheric changes they disclose, these being repeatedly so vast as to 

 stretch across four continents at one time, besides being often profoundly 

 interesting from their influence on the food supplies and the commercial 

 intercourse of nations, or the large problems hereby presented, with 

 hints toward their solution, which underlie physical geography, climat- 

 ology, and other branches of atmospheric physics. We have thus had 

 shown us from month to month, in a way not hitherto possible, the great 

 n. Mis. 26 25 



