METEOROLOGY. 453 



tfliuous record on a sheet of paper, if required. Full details of the 

 apparatus are given in Nature^ Vol. xxvi, p. 494. and in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Institute of Civil Engineers. 



Tillo has published in the Nautical Eeview (Ilorsloi SborniJc) an in- 

 teresting paper on the slopes and ranges between high and low water 

 in the rivers of European Russia. For the Volga the range is 12 feet 

 at Astrachan, and the average range throughout the whole length of 

 the river is 33.6 feet. For the Duna the range is 9 feet at Eiga, and 

 25.2 feet on the average for the whole river. {Nature, xxvi, p. 543.) 



Mr. G. H. Darwin states that a misprint in a tidal report of 1872 has 

 affected all the reductions of tides since that time, and in place of re- 

 peating the laborious computations he endeavors to compute the maxi- 

 mum effect which this error can have produced. His memoir is said 

 to have contaioed suggestions of a new method of procedure of the 

 harmonic analysis of the tides of long periods. {Nature, xxvi, p. 465.) 



Yornol has published the chemistry of the Norwegian North Atlan- 

 tic expedition, in which he discusses the quantity of air and carbonic- 

 acid gas, and of the salt in the sea water; his apparatus for obtaining 

 samples at any depth was invented by Captain Wills. The apparatus 

 for boiling out the gases was that recommended by Jacobsen, with 

 the addition of a beautiful slide valve invented by Dr. Behrens. Ninety- 

 four samples of air extracted from water taken at various depths give the 

 volume of oxygen varying between 33.7 and 36.7 for the service water. 

 He finds the lowest oxygen 33.64, and the highest 34.14. The results of 

 the "Challenger" observations were 35,01 and 32.35. {Nature, xxv, 

 p. 338.) 



Dr. Tomoe states, in reference to the effect of depth on the oxygen, 

 *'The proportion, which at the surface is 35.3 per cent., diminishes at 

 first rapidly, then slowly, to 32.5 per cent, at a depth of 300 fathoms, 

 after which it keeps constant." Buchanan remarks that the percentage 

 of oxygen must depend largely upon the time elapsed since the water 

 of the respective depths was in contact with the atmosphere. As to 

 the carbonic acid Tomoe finds 52.78 milligrams per liter of water pres- 

 ent in the carbonates, and 43.64 milligrams present in the bicarbonates 

 contained in the sea water. He gives an elaborate table of the expan- 

 sion of sea water with temperature. The quantity of solid residue in 

 sea water is shown upon charts that clearly demonstrate the distri- 

 bution of the water from the Atlantic and the Polar regions. In gen- 

 eral, Tomoe's work must be recognized as giving a great impetus to 

 the chemical study of sea water. {Nature, xxv, p. 411.) 



d Climate and Biology. 



Dr. T. L. Whitehead has published his researches based on fifty years' 

 consecutive observation on the climate of Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, 

 and the diseases peculiar to the climate of that locality, thereby raak- 



