102 



NATURE 



[November 23, 191 1 



conscious love of country life so often (and sometimes 

 so mawkishly) expressed, is perhaps one of the most 

 significant of modern characteristics. 



Two factors play a highly important part in the 

 movement : the purely personal factor, a desire on 

 the part of the individual to get away from the arti- 

 ficiality of the city into the green fields and the woods, 

 «nd the social factor, a realisation that only by making 

 the most of our natural resources and getting the 

 greatest possible produce out of the land can the com- 

 munity be established on a sound basis. We may 

 thus roughly divide the literature of the subject under 

 two main headings. Several of Prof. Bailey's books 

 deal with the second aspect of the problem ; in the 

 present he takes a complete survey of the whole field. 



The country-life movement, he states, is the work- 

 ing out of the desire to make rural civilisation as 

 effective and satisfying as any other civilisation. It is 

 thus to be an end in itself, and not merely a way 

 of raising more food, or of absorbing city undesir- 

 ables, or increasing the price of land, although all 

 these things may happen as secondary conseq;iences. 

 The Commission on Country Life appointed by Presi- 

 dent Roosevelt in 1908 was the first organised expres- 

 sion of the movement in the States, and it found 

 that agriculture is not commercially as profitable as 

 it is entitled to be, and that the social conditions of 

 the open country are far short of their possibilities. 

 ITiree great campaigns were recommended : a survey 

 of rural resources; the organising of a nationalised 

 extension work; and the inauguration of a general 

 campaign of rural progress. All are, in Prof. Bailey's 

 view, equally necessary; every rural community needs 

 to have a programme of its own carefully worked out, 

 and this programme should rest on a physical valua- 

 tion. It is high time that this work was put in 

 hand; much of the necessary information has been 

 collected by the agricultural colleges, and in general 

 men are available for carrying out these great con- 

 structive plans once they are evolved. 



But some very clear thinking must first be done, 

 and a good deal of confusion must be brushed away. 

 Especially must we avoid one very common error— 

 the idea that suburbanism and gardening constitute 

 country life. It is to the development of the village, 

 not as the suburb of a great city, but as the place 

 where the inhabitants actually earn their livelihood, 

 that Prof. Bailey looks for future progress. As a first 

 step farming has to be made more profitable by 

 eliminating non-effective charges (the middleman, 

 according to Prof. Bailey, secures over 50 per cent, of 

 the proceeds in some cases), and more power, poli- 

 tical, social, and commercial, must be given to the 

 village. Further, the village and city must not com- 

 pete. "We can never again be a rural people. We 

 want the cities to grow." But it is also necessary 

 to impress upon the cities the fact that they stand 

 to gain by having an efficient village society, a new 

 social order evolved in the open country, to which 

 every farmer must contribute his share. Whilst the 

 tendency of the city is to make eight-hour men and 

 clock watchers, this new society must aim higher, for 

 its business is the struggle with nature and the con- 

 quest of the earth. E. J. R. 

 NO. 2195, VOL. 88] 



ELEMENTARY METEOROLOGY. 



Weather Science: an Elementary Introducli 

 Meteorology. By F. W. Henkel. Pp. 33- 

 (London : T. Fisher Unwin, 191 1.) Price 6^. net 



IN elementary text-books of meteorology it is tl 

 custom to begin with a description of the acti<. 

 of common instruments like the barometer and therm 

 meter, and of common facts like the apparent motions 

 of the sun, and to continue the theoretical development 

 as far as elementary mechanics and thermodynamic 

 Exigencies of space prevent a complete exposition, at, 

 it is found necessary to omit explanations at som-- 

 stages. Unfortunately, authors almost invariab!* 

 choose the later stages for the omissions ; thci 

 they give merely the bald statement of facts, wit 

 little or no explanation. It would seem desirable t 

 omit certain introductory matters which can be foun 

 in all elementary text-books on physiography ■ 

 physics, and to reserve the space for a fuller treatmen; 

 of the special problems of the atmosphere. In th' 

 book before us, the author describes in detail tli 

 .'ipparent motions of the sun, but assumes that h: 

 readers understand the term "latent heat," and givi 

 no explanation of the effect of change of pressure d 

 moist air. 



Nevertheless, Mr. Henkel has produced an intere^ 

 ing and readable book. He has quoted freely fror 

 authorities such as Abercromby, .Scott, Waldo, Maur\ 

 and Inwards, and has, in some cases, added par, 

 graphs and chapters giving a description of mc)i 

 recent work. The additions are not all as compki 

 as could be desired, and they usually appear to t 

 culled from isolated books and papers, producing 

 somewhat fragmentary result in places. Thus, 

 reference is made to Simpson's new theory of thundc 

 storms as it appeared briefly in Nature, but oth' 

 new theories are not mentioned. 



Perhaps the most serious criticism that would occu; 

 to a reader is the almost complete absence of dia 

 grams, and more especially of charts and maps. Th 

 book is by no means free from illustrations, but th< 

 are almost entirely reserved for instruments and 

 cloud forms, the latter being particularly good. 

 We doubt whether a reader new to the subjec 

 would understand clearly the verbal descriptions of tli 

 distribution of mean pressure, air and sea temper;i 

 tures, and ocean currents; and the explanations o. 

 Buys Ballot's Law and of the types of pressure distri- 

 bution are incomplete without illustrative examples. 



The author has allowed himself to build up a con 

 plete story under the general heading of each chaptn 

 irrespective of whether a part of the story appear 

 elsewhere in another connection. Thus. Buys Ballot's 

 iaw is stated no less than three times in three different 

 chapters. The reiteration of the fundamental law of 

 dynamical meteorology has its advantages, but other 

 repeated statements are open to question. Among 

 these is one affirming that rain in mountainous 

 districts is due to the cooling effect of the summits 

 on the warm moist air passing over them. Meteoro- 

 logists are not yet agreed as to whether a mountain 

 peak is in general cooler than the surrounding air, but 

 even allowing a considerable temperature difference. 



