Dec, 2, 1875] 



NATURE 



87 



the record. It would be interesting to have this accurately stated, 

 and more widely published- 



At Bangalore, in the Mysore Province, I once r^isterei an 

 inch and a quarter in twenty minutes ; and seven and eight, and 

 more inches have been occasionally gauged during a hea\-y 

 twenty-four hours' fall, notably so in 1856, when disastrous floods 

 occurred. Somewhere about that period a most extraordinary 

 fall of rain occurred at Madras. I regret that I have not the 

 record by me, but I am right in saying that more than twenty- 

 three inches fell in twenty-four hours ! and that more than seven 

 inches fell within six hours ! This was gauged at the Madras 

 Observatory, and registered every hour ; the statement can there- 

 fore be easily corroborated by a reference to the superintendent 

 at that place. A coffee planter on the western Ghauts of Mysore 

 told me that at Hoolikul he had gaugeJ, in Augrist 1874, 13I 

 inches in one day, and loj the next He described it as a 

 sullen, intermittent, continuous downpour, the monotony of 

 which was very depressing. At Mahableshwar, on the same 

 line of Ghauts, the average faU is 240 inches, chiefly in the four 

 or five months, from May to September inclusive ; while at the 

 Cherrapoonji Hills, not very far from Calcutta, the average fall 

 is over 600 mches, or (say) seventeen yards of rain ! My notes 

 are in a book that I left in India, but I am within the mark in 

 what has been stated above. 



The meteoiology of India would furnish many startling inci- 

 dents. It has not hitherto been sufliciently attended to, or 

 recorded, and much valuable time has been allowed (like the 

 rainfall) to rtm by; but attention is now, I believe, being paid to 

 its systematic registry, and to the publication of accurate results. 

 I have some interesting records, however, of the Pro^ance of 

 Mysore, which I would gladly place at your disposal should you 

 desire to have them. J. Puckle 



A New Palmistry 



It is the old story — '* In striving to be concise, I have become 

 obscure." If Mr. Mott will refer to my abstract of Prof. Ecker's 

 paper, he will find directions as to procedure, very briefly stated, 

 I wUl grant ; for I, and others too, more competent to judge 

 than myself, had no idea that the subject would attract the atten- 

 tion which it hiiS done. At Mr. Mott's desire, however, I give 

 him a literal translation of Prof. Ecker's directions \op. at. 

 p, 73) in full :— 



" With regard to the method of measurement on living indi- 

 viduals, I will merely remark that the hand must be simply laid, 

 with the fingers closed together, upon a board or a piece of 

 paper, upon which a well-defined perpendicular line has been 

 drawn. With this latter the axis of the middle finger and its 

 metacarpal bone is made precisely to coincide. Every lateral 

 movement of the middle finger naturally alters also the position of 

 ihe other fingers, and every movement of the fingers upon the 

 metacarpal bones towards the pollex turns to the advantage of 

 the position of the index, while that toward the Uttle-finger-edge 

 of the hand to the advantage of that of the ring-finger. The 

 tips of the fingers (without nails d la Chttiois) are then outlined 

 with a pencil, halved longitudinally ; its cut surface being applied 

 against them." John C. Galton 



Nov. 29 



I HAVE made a number 'of determinations of the relative 

 lengths of the "index" and "ring" fingers of both hands, the 

 results of which, I think, very decidedly show that there is a 

 great dissimilarity between the two hands. The hands of twenty- 

 two persons were examined ; in ten there was similarity between 

 the hands as regards the relative lengths of the two fingers in 

 question ; in twelve there was dissimilarity. In the case of eight 

 out of the ten the " ring " was lon:^er than the " index ; " in one 

 case the "index " was the longer, and in the remaining instance 

 the two fingers were of equal length. Of the twelve cases which 

 exhibited dissimilarity, six had the "ring "longer than the "in- 

 dex " in the left hand, and five in the right hand ; four had the 

 *'mdex " longer than the " ring " in the left hand, and in three 

 the same relation existed in the right hand. 



M. M. Pattison Muir 



The Owens College, Manchester, Nov. 27 



Faye on the Laws of Storms 



M. Faye's paper on cyclones and waterspouts, of which you 

 ve'ately published a full abstract, seems very unsatisfactory. 

 .e ^atement in Nature, vol. xii. p. 401, of the laws of the cy- 



clone's motion is no doubt true, but it is avowedly not original 

 But the succeeding parts, where the dynamics of the subject are 

 treated of, cannot be sufficient — I think I may say caonot be 

 sound — because they take no account of the very remarkable 

 facts of the geographical distrib ation of cyclones. If M. Faye's 

 theory were true and complete, cyclones ought to be equally 

 common in all equatorial and tropical regions, except perhaps 

 that they ought to be commonest in the hottest parts. So far is 

 this from being the case, that they are strictly local phenomena. 

 They are formed in the West Indian seas, but not in the South 

 Atlantic ; in the Indian Ocean, both north and south of the 

 equator, but much oftener oa the eastern than on the western 

 side of India ; and, I believe, off the coast of California, bat not 

 that of Peru. Their periodicity is equally remarkable. In the 

 West Indian and in the Chinese seas they occur chiefly at the 

 end of summer, but in the Bay of Bengal after the equinoxes. 



All these facts point to the origin of the cyclone, not, as 

 M. Faye seems to think, in eddies formed in the upper currents 

 of the atmosphere — how could eddies be formed in currents, so 

 totally free from obstructions? — but in eddies formed by the 

 meeting and conflict of the two trade-winds where one of them 

 is dra\vn across the equator. This hypothesis ^rees with obser- 

 vation, and harmonises aU the geographical facts relating to 

 cyclones. 



This simple and true theory is stated in a paper on the Law of 

 Storms by Prof. Maury, in Nature of June 12, 19, and 26, 

 1873. It had previously been stated for the Bay of Bengal, as 

 the result of an examination of particular storms, by Mr. 

 Meldrum, in a paper read before the Meteorological Society of 

 Mauritius, and reported in Nature, vol. ii. p. 151 ; and a letter 

 of mine in Nature, vol. iv. p. 305, maintained the probabi- 

 hty of all cyclones so originating. 



I think M. Faye is as unsatisfactory on waterspouts as on 

 cyclones. I hope to follow this by a letter on waterspouts. 



Joseph John Murphy 



Old Forge, Dunmurry, Co. Antrim, Nov. 16 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 



Satellites of Uranus. — There are many amateurs 

 in this country who possess instruments quite competent 

 to show the two larger or exterior satellites of the planet 

 Uranus. With the view to facilitate the identification of 

 these objects, their angles of position and distances from 

 the centre of Uranus are given below for i4h. Greenwich 

 mean time for the last ten days of the present year, with 

 the intention of continuing them while the planet is most 

 favourably placed for observation as regards position and 

 distance from the moon's place. They are deduced from 

 the verj' convenient tables appended by Prof. Xewcomb 

 to his discussion of the observations of the satellites with 

 the 26 inch equatorial at Washington, forming Appendix 

 I. to the Washington Observations for 1873 : — 



At i4h. G M.T. o TiTAMA. „ o Oberox. „ 



Dec 19 ... Pos. 480 Dist. 208 ... Pos, 642 Dist. 231 



20... „ 183 „ 323 ... „ 33S „ 346 



21 ... „ 3596 „ 32-1 • • » 181 „ 434 



22 ... „ 329 2 „ 205 ... „ 61 „ 453 



23 ••• ,. 2496 „ 166 ... „ 3529 „ 394 

 24... „ 206-I „ 293 ... „ 3314 „ 28-3 



25 ... „ 186-4 „ 33 9 ... „ 285-2 „ 200 



26 ., „ 1634 „ 254 ... „ 233-4 „ 26-1 



27 ... ,, loo-Ji „ 149 ... „ 2088 „ 37-6 



28 ... „ 362 „ 25 o ... „ 1947 .. 449 



29 .. „ 129 „ 339 ... „ 182-9 „ 446 



30 ••• ,. 353 2 „ 297 . „ 168-4 >, 36-9 



31 ... „ 311-3 „ 170 ... ,, 142-2 „ 25-5 

 The above angles are reckoned as is usual in measures of 

 double stars, i.e., from the N. point round by the east. 

 The apparent diameter of Uranus by the Malta deter- 

 mination of Lassell and Marth will be 3"-87on December 

 25th. With this value, should it be found more conve- 

 nient, the arc values may be reduced to distances in 

 diameters of the planet. 



The Minor Planets. — No. 156 is announced as 

 having been discovered by Herr Palisa, at Pola, on 

 Nov. 22, in R.A. 2h. 54m,, and N.P.D. 70° 23' : it is of 



