History of Astronomy for the Year 1905. 347 
prove more than equivalent to the duties at present col- 
lected. 
“Since writing the above, I am informed by a person who 
deals largely in foreign oils, that letters from Leghorn an- 
nounce an alarming deficiency in the last year’s product; 
‘that the quantity is very small, and of a very inferior qua- 
lity. This information should operate as an additional mo- 
tive to the attempt recommended. The injury induced upon 
olive trees by inclement weather is frequently to such an ex- 
tent, that it can only be repaired by the slow growth of new 
plantations. This circumstance gives an astonishing advan- 
tage to a substitute, of which, by its being an annual pro- 
duct, the deficiency of the most unfavourable year cannot 
be equally extensive, and would probably be supplied by the 
mereased abundance of the year ensuing. 
LIIi. History of Astronomy for the Year 1805. By 
JEROME DE LALANDE, 
{Concluded from p. 253.] 
Tus meteorology of 1805 has been remarkable for the va- 
riations of temperature. It froze in the months of March, 
June, and September: on the 17th and 18th of December 
a degree of cold of from 6° to 7° froze the Seine at Paris 5 
and on the 3ist we had the same temperature as in spring. 
On the 7th of December, at eight o’clock in the evening, 
at Basle, in Switzerland, the inhabitants thought themselves 
at the mouth of a furnace. This heat lasted three hours. 
There was a hurricane on the 13th of December, in which 
several vessels were lost. 
Perbaps the aurorz boreales, which have such an intimate 
connection with electricity, and which are constant in the 
north, may occasion storms which determine the winds, 
and contribute to these unaccountable variations of the sea- 
sons in our country. 
There happened a phenomenon this year which furnished 
me with an opportunity of explaining the origin of hurri- 
canes. At Belfort, on the 4th of July, there was one of 
those hurricanes, so rare and extraordinary in Europe, which 
tore 
