542 



NATURE 



[February 22, 19 12 



scheme, good as it was, had no chance to show its 

 merits until moisture-conserving tillage was adopted. 

 Thus the young man's science and the old man's 

 experience finally solved the problem, and that par- 

 ticular tract of land was conquered. 



But we have only been able to give a very brief 

 account of this delightful book. The American agri- 

 cultural student and farmer are admirably drawn, and 

 the reader also learns Dr. Hopkins's views on soil 

 fertility, and where he differs from the Bureau of 

 Soils. Light reading the Book certainly is, as the 

 author intended, but it has depth and permanent value. 



E. J. Russell. 



TWO IMPORTANT WORKS ON 

 CLIMATOLOGY. 

 (i) Handbuch der Klimaiologie. By Prof. J. Hann. 

 iii. Band. Klimatographie. 2 Teil, Klima der 

 gemaszigten Zonen und der Polarzonen. Dritte 

 Auflage. Pp. ix + 713. (Stuttgart: J. Engelhorn's 

 Nachf., 1911.) Price 23 marks. 

 (2) Das Klima der Schweiz auf Gnwdlage der 37- 

 jdhrigen Beobachtungsperiode 1864-1900. Bear- 

 beitet von Jul. Maurer, Rob. Billwiller, jr., und 

 Clem. Hess. Preisschrift herausgegeben durch die 

 Stiftung von Schnyder von Wartensee mit Unter- 

 stiitzung der schweizerischen meteorologischen Zen- 

 tralanstalt. In zwei Banden. Erster Band, Text, 

 pp. viii + 302. Price 12 marks. Zweiter Band, 

 Tabellen, pp. v+217. Price 8 marks. (Frauen- 

 feld : Huber and Co., 1909-1910.) 

 AXHTH the third volume of his "Handbuch der 

 V V Klimatologie " (i) Prof. Hann has completed 

 the third edition of that famous work. This last 

 volume deals with the special climatology of the tem- 

 perate and polar regions. It would be difficult to 

 find in other 700 pages of printed matter a similar 

 collection of well-arranged facts. Not that the book 

 is a mere collection of facts. The author has suc- 

 ceeded in clothing the dry bones with flesh, and the 

 discussions of the data and the bringing of them into 

 relation, on one hand, with the general physics of 

 the globe, and, on the other, with the various phases 

 of human activity, make most interesting reading. 

 The manner in which the works of other authors are 

 drawn on in this connection is wholly admirable. 



The arrangement of the book is similar to that 

 adopted in the second volume, which dealt with the 

 tropics. Each section commences with a general de- 

 scription of the main features of the region under 

 review. Thus when considering the Mediterranean — 

 the world of the ancients — twenty-five pages suffice to 

 supply a framework into which we can fit the details 

 of the later 140 pages of special description. They 

 bring vividly before us the essential differences between 

 the coastal and the inland regions, the distribution 

 of rainfall with its typical winter maximum becoming 

 gradually modified into a summer maximum at the 

 foot of the Alps, the peculiar temperature conditions 

 with the remarkable warmth of the autumn months, 

 and the principal local winds. More detailed informa- 

 tion for each country or other division follows. This 

 is accompanied by much tabular matter, the scope of 

 NO. 2208, VOL. 88] 



which has been considerably extended in this editi< 

 as compared with its 'predecessor. Data are no^ 

 given, as a rule, for all twelve months, and not merel^ 

 for four characteristic months. For regions whic 

 possess no organised meteorological services the wc 

 of bringing together data from scattered sources, 

 paring them and calculating average values, had 

 be gone through. Even for regions where ai 

 organised service exists Prof. Hann has not alwayi 

 been satisfied with mere selection and extractionj 

 For instance, in the tables of mean temperature h« 

 has endeavoured to correct the values so as to give 

 the best approximation to the true daily mean whereve 

 it was possible and necessary to do so. Great stre 

 is laid throughout on this element, and in some 

 cases a laborious recalculation of means has been gon« 

 through in order to realise the object. 



When dealing with regions of which the majorit 

 of his readers are likely to have no personal exper 

 ence, Prof. Hann has added to the discussion of t\ 

 data pregnant descriptions of the effects of the climat 

 on man, taken from the accounts of travellers 

 residents. These serve to bring out the salient pbint 

 in a way that tables of extreme and mean values fa 

 to do. Thus the contrast between the generally call 

 condition of eastern Siberia with its intense wintt 

 cold and the violent blizzards of the steppes of th^ 

 western Siberian region makes little impression on 01 

 imagination until we consider the effects of thes 

 climates on man. In the east the intense cold 

 borne without serious discomfort, but in the stepped 

 the wind and drifting snow render the condition- 

 almost unbearable, though the temperature may be con- 

 siderably higher. Again, the accounts of the effect on 

 man of the snowstorms of the steppes remind us in 

 many ways of the sandstorms of the African desert. 

 Against both, man and beast are powerless. 



Since the appearance of the second edition in 1897 

 our knowledge of the main features of the climate 

 of Europe and North America has altered little. Pro- 

 gress has been mainly in the direction of a more 

 thorough discussion of the data. Most of the old- 

 established meteorological services have published 

 summaries of the whole or of a portion of their 

 accumulated observations. Thus for Russia we have 

 Rykatscheff's " Climatological Atlas for the Russian 

 Empire," for Germany Hellmann's work on the rain- 

 fall of North Germany, for France Angot's tempera- 

 ture tables, and for Italy Eredia's temperature and 

 rainfall tables. For Austria the results for each 

 province are being issued separately ; those for four 

 regions have already appeared, and have been noticed 

 from time to time in Nature. For the American 

 continent we have Henry's "Climatology of the 

 United States " and Bigelow's " Report on the Tem- 

 peratures and Vapour Tensions of the United States," 

 which have been issued by the Weather Bureau. In 

 Australia also the establishment of a Commonwealth 

 Weather Meteorological Bureau has already given us 

 a new rainfall map of the continent. In other parts 

 of the world the primary survey has been pushed 

 forward into what were in 1897 little-known regions. 

 Especially in South Africa has there been a great 

 improvement consequent upon the establishment of 



