68 



NATURE 



[NpVEMBER 17, 1910 



DESCEIPTIVE METEOROLOGY. 



Descriptive Meteorology. By Prof. Willis L. Moore, 

 Chief of United States Weather Bureau. Pp. 

 xviii + 344. (New York and London: D. Apple- 

 ton and Company, 1910.) Price 12s. 6d. net. 



A TEXT-BOOK by the Chief of the great Weather 

 Bureau of the United States of America will be 

 received with not a litde interest, and Prof. Willis 

 Moore, in submitting this treatise, has had before 

 him the definite aim of providing the young men enter- 

 ing the service of the bureau with "a comprehensive 

 introduction to modern meteorology." We think that 

 the author has in most ways successfully realised his 

 aim, though the great prominence given to American 

 methoids and the researches of American official 

 meteorologists make the work to some extent unsuit- 

 able for adoption as a text-book for students in other 

 countries. The author warmly expresses his obliga- 

 tion for valuable help received from various colleagues 

 —Abbe, Bigelow, Kimball, Henry, Cox, and Hum- 

 |>lireys— and the extent of this indebtedness will be 

 appreciated by those familiar with the writings of 

 these specialists in the " Monthly Weather J^eview " 

 and in various official bulletins of the bureau. We 

 should have been glad, however, if attention had been 

 directed somewhat more fully to the splendid work of 

 A. L. Rotch, for a book such as this should be a 

 source of inspiration to the student, and nothing in 

 American meteorology is inore inspiring than a con- 

 .sideration of the history of the Blue Hill Observatory. 



To indicate briefly the scope of the work, we may 

 say that the science of meteorologv is given the 

 widest possible reference, and that great attention is 

 devoted to the dvnamics of the subject. The opening 

 chapters deal very fully with such general questions 

 as the composition of the earth's atmosphere, the 

 physical condition of the sun and its relation to the 

 earth's atmosphere, and radiation waves in their 

 different forms. Passing to a consideration of the 

 vertical and horizontal distribution of temperature, a 

 special chapter is devoted to an interesting study of 

 the so-called " isothermal layer," where perhaps de 

 Bort's term, "stratosphere," might have been adopted. 

 A discussion of atmospheric pressure and circulation 

 follows — where Buys Ballot's name is not mentioned — 

 and Bigelow 's work is summarised in considerable 

 detail. Chapters on anemometry and the winds of 

 the globe, on clouds, and on precipitation in its various 

 forms, are good, but the international classification of 

 clouds should have been included. Then follows an 

 admirable discussion of weather forecasting, a chapter 

 on meteorological optics, and a final one on climate 

 — ^somewhat discursive, but excellent in its treatment 

 of the influence of topographical conditions. 



Prof. Moore is a master of the art of condensation 

 and the fortunate possessor of a good sense of propor- 

 tion, and these qualities have enabled him to cover 

 a wide field in a satisfactory manner. The great 

 organisation the work of which he directs touches the 

 practical interests of the people at many points, and he 

 rs at his best in discussing the practical problems of 

 weather forecasting, which are illustrated by an excel- 

 NO. 2142, VOL. 85] 



lent series of weather maps. Again, his brief discus- 

 sions of such questions of perennial popular interest 

 as the influence of forests on rainfall and the supposed 

 influence of the (iulf Stream on the climate of western 

 Europe are excellent. It was perhaps well practically 

 to exclude mathemavical formulae, but we think 

 that here and there the book might have been 

 strengthened by the inclusion of statistics in tabular 

 form. Thus the vital differences between insular and 

 continental climates would have been most forcibly 

 brought home to the student by actual data for actual 

 places along some given parallel of latitude across, 

 say, the Eurasian continent. 



Each chapter concludes with an e.xcellent biblio- 

 graphy, but the attention of American students might 

 have been directed to the research papers issued from 

 the British Meteorological Office during the last few 

 years. And the book properly ends with an index, 

 but a glance at this leaves us puzzled as to what prin- 

 ciple was adopted in the inclusion of. proper names. 

 Buchan and Rotch are merely mentioned in the book, 

 and their names are not quoted, nor are those of 

 Bigelow and Humphreys, though their work is laid 

 under heavy contribution, whilst those of less well- 

 known authors are given. In a book published in 

 iqio a different adverb should have been used in a 

 reference (p. 194) to " Sir William Thomson (now 

 Lord Kelvin)." 



The publishers have done their work well and the 

 volume is a handsome one. The numerous illustra- ^i 

 tions and charts are excellent, though the map repre- 

 senting the normal distribution of rainfall over the 

 United States would have been more readily grasped 

 had it been printed in different shades of colour instead 

 of merely with red isohyets running over a white sur- 

 face. 



THEORIES AND PHYSICS OF THE SUN. 



(1) Les Theories Modernes du Soleil. By J. Bosler, 

 " EncyclopMie Scientifique." Pp. xii + 37o4-xii. 

 (Paris : Octave Doin et Fils, 19 10.) Price 5 francs. 



(2) Vorlesungen, ilber die Physik der Sonne. By Prof. 

 E. Pringsheim. Pp. viii + 435. (Leipzig and Ber- 

 lin : B. G. Teubner, 1910.) Price 16 marks. 



IN the first of these two books, dealing with our 

 central luminary, the sun, the author presents 

 his readers with a very well-arranged survey of the 

 more modern views with respect to this important 

 bodv. The author, who is one of the astronomers 

 at the Meudon Observatory, is in a particularly good 

 position to become acquainted with modern solar re- 

 searches and opinions, and the solar work in pro- 

 gress at that observatory is second to none. 



The book bears evidence of the author's command 

 of his subject, and the method of placing the material 

 before his readers which he has adopted is one that 

 is highly commendable and particularly suitable for 

 the valuable series of volumes which form this 

 " Encyclopedie Scientifique." 



Commencing with the general theories of the soli 

 constitution, he makes a brief resiinii of older vie' 

 up to i860, which include those of Herschel, Kircl 





