DEVELOPMENT OF METEOROLOGY—ABBE. 305 
of curves analogous to those used by the steam engineer when he 
wishes to ascertain the condition of the steam in his cylinder and the 
amount of work being done by it. Von Bezold also shows how to 
treat any changes in the air that are not adiabatic, although so nearly 
so that they can be called pseudo-adiabatic. Lately a student of 
von Bezold, Dector Neuhoff, has published a modification of Hertz’s 
diagram, together with elaborate tables, by means of which most prob- 
lems in the formation of cloud, rain, and hail or snow may be very 
easily solved, and with as much accuracy as the present state of our 
knowledge allows. <A still more extensive work along this line has been 
published by my colleague, Professor Bigelow, in his Weather Bureau 
Report on International Cloud Observations. He has not only dis- 
cussed all the observations of clouds made in connection with the 
International Programme during the year 1896-97, but has added to 
this a memoir that is quite unique in meteorology, including a com- 
plete system of fundamental constants, formule, and reduction tables. 
I need only add that my colleague’s work on the hydrodynamics and 
thermodynamics of terrestrial meteorology as contained in this vol- 
ume will undoubtedly be recognized as perfectly sound. By collect- 
ing all important formule and numerical constants into one system 
of tables with uniform notation, he has simplified the work of young 
students and rendered it convenient for anyone to rapidly survey 
the increasing literature of the subject. I especially commend his 
chapters 10 and 11 to experts in mathematical physics. He has ar- 
ranged his numerical tables so as to make them as convenient for the 
solution of his problems as are the diagrams of Hertz and Neuhoff. 
THE WATERSPOUT OF AUGUST, 1896. 
Nothing will more brilliantly illustrate the success with which our 
colleague has attacked atmospheric problems than his latest memoir, 
which is now being published in the Monthly Weather Review on 
“The Waterspout of August, 1896,” about which I will say a few 
words. The lantern slide pictures that I am about to throw upon the 
screen are exact reproductions, without retouching, of photographs 
of this spout, which occurred on Wednesday, August 19, 1896, in Vine- 
yard Sound, Massachusetts. It was fortunately photographed or ac- 
curately observed from at least six different points south, southwest, 
west, and northwest of the spout itself, the principal views being those 
taken at Cottage City, on Marthas Vineyard, which was about 5} 
miles southwest of the track of the spout. Fortunately a small 
schooner was passing along between Cottage City and the spout, and 
as the views always include this vessel its movement became the 
means of measuring the exact intervals of time. In order to derive 
the best results from these photographs, Professor Bigelow personally 
