Jtdy II, 1878J 



NATURE 



287 



WORK AND PROGRESS OF THE IMPERIAL 

 GEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF VIENNA ^ 



1. 'J^HE Staff has its full complement. M. D. Stur 

 ■'■ has been appointed sub-director, Dr. O. Lenz has 



returned from Africa with much information on the 

 West Coast. M. Pilide, volunteer since 1875, has been 

 appointed official geologist in Roumania. Two volunteers 

 have joined, and there are four students in the museum 

 and laboratory. 



II. The Bmlditi^ has been considerably altered and 

 enlarged, giving more space for laboratory, library, and 

 museum. 



III. The Survey Operations have been directed to 

 (i) the special Map of the Empire. Section i. MM. 

 Stache and Teller surveying the Central Alps south and 

 east from the Cividale massif, the Oetzthal massif, &c. 



2. MM. von Mojsisovics, Vacek, and Bittner— the Cima 

 d'Asta, Sette Communi, and eastward to the Venetian 

 plain, the Tertiaries of the Vicentin, and down to the 

 valley of the Adige. 3. MM. Paul, Tietze, and Lenz, 

 East Galicia and part of N.E. Hungary. 



(2). Local Surveys, Ss^c, D. Stur — Review of Stern- 

 berg's and Corda's collections of Carboniferous Plants in 

 the Prague Museum ; Coal-bed of Upper Silesia; Fossil 

 Plants of Lunz in Upper Austria. Stache — Palseozoic 

 Schists of the Semmering on the Styrio- Austrian frontier. 

 Von Mojsisovics— Trias in Upper Austria and Carinthia. 

 Wolf— Railway Line in Upper Austria. Paul and Fr. 

 Ritter ron Hauer— Coal-beds of Aspang and Kladno. 

 Bittner— Geological Map of the Archduke Leopold's 

 Estates South of Vienna. 



(3). With Government Aid, R. Hoernes— Devonian 

 Strata near Gratz, Styria. Koch— Rhaeticon and Sel- 

 vettra group. 



(4). The Bohemian Commission.— Y^x&]c\. and Helm- 

 hacker— The Silurians of Central Bohemia. Laube— 

 The Erzgebirg between Bohemia and Saxony. Fritsch — 

 Palaeozoic Saurians and Crustacea of Beraun. Nowak— 

 Cypris-shales with Insects. Boritzky— Porphyries. 



5. Hungarian Geological Survey. — Banat and South 

 and West Hungary, surveyed by MM. Hofmann, Roth, 

 Matiasovics, Boeckh, and Hantken. 



IV. Rearrangement of and additions to, the Museum. 

 Forty-one donors. Above 1,000 specimens, presented by 

 Fr. Karrer, illustrative of the geology and fossils of the 

 region traversed by the Francis-Joseph Aqueduct from 

 the slopes of the Schneeberg to Vienna. 



V. Library. — i. Books: Increase of 270 works in 281 

 volumes or parts; Periodicals, 422 volumes. Total at 

 the close of 1877, 8,346 work in 22,496 volumes or parts ; 

 766 Periodicals and Transactions in 13,261 volumes or 

 parts. Various new Exchanges. 2. Maps: Arrange- 

 ment completed. Total at the close of 1877, 933 in 3,825 

 sheets, besides the original maps by the Institute, and the 

 special general maps of the Austro-Himgarian Empire 

 reduced from them. 



VI. Laboratory.— Ne\y\y esiah\\?,'hQd in a fresh locality. 

 Enlargement of collection of artificial crystals, by Karl 

 Ritter von Hauer. Analysis of eruptive rocks of the 

 Ortler mountain-group, by M. John. Analyses of fossil 

 fuel, ores, building-materials, &c. 



VII. Publications.— \. The Transactions, vol. rii. 

 part IV., and vols. viii. and ix., with fifty-four maps, 

 sections, and plates, comprising Vacek' s paper on the 

 Mastodons of Austria ; F. Karrer' s Geology of the Francis- 

 Joseph Aqueduct; and Stur's description of the Culm- 

 flora. 2. The Annals : Ten contributors. 3. The Mineralo- 

 gical Communications ; Twenty-two contributors. These 

 papers will for the future be published by themselves. 

 4. The Proceedings : Twenty-six contributors. 5. Other- 

 publications : MM. von Hauer and Neumayx's Guide for 



' From Fr. Ritter von Hauer's Annual Report, January 8, 1878. 



the Meeting of the German Geologists; M. Stache' s 

 Geological Map of the Maritime region of Austria ; Fr. 

 von Hauer's "Geology," second edition. 



METEOROLOGICAL NOTES 



Dr. Otto Krummel publishes a paper in the current 

 number of the journal of the Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde 

 of Berlin, on the distribution of the rainfall of Europe, 

 illustrated by a well-executed map of seven colours, 

 which show the regions where the annual rainfall does 

 not exceed 9'8 inches (25 ctm.), is from 9*8 to 157 inches, 

 from 15 7 to 217 inches, &c., the deepest tint covering 

 all those regions where the rainfall exceeds 39*4 inches 

 (100 ctm.). The map exhibits in a striking manner the 

 small rainfall in the east and the heavy rainfall in the 

 west ; the markedly reduced rainfall of such mountain- 

 sheltered plains as those which surround Paris, Cler- 

 mont, Mannheim, Prague, Pressburg, and the great 

 plain of Hungary ; the large rainfall of the slopes of the 

 Caucasus, which stands out in strong contrast with that 

 of the arid regions all round ; and the exceptional rain- 

 fall of Spain, which presents on the map a picturesque 

 patchwork of all the seven colours representative of the 

 wettest down to the driest regions portrayed on the map. 

 The most important feature, however, is the partition of 

 Europe into two divisions, by a waved line lying about 

 the forty-third degree of latitude, the southern division 

 being characterised by a rainless or all but rainless 

 summer, and the northern by rain all the year round, 

 where an absolutely rainless month is of rare occurrence. 

 Slight exception may be taken to the rainfall set down for 

 Iceland, Holland, and portions of the east of Scotland 

 and west of Norway, as being a little too large, but on 

 the. whole the map is an admirable piece of work. 



Dr. Hornstein, of Prague Observatory, has dis- 

 cussed the observations of the wind made there from 

 1849 with a Kreil's anemometer, and the results, which 

 have been communicated to the Vienna Academy, dis- 

 close periodicities of velocity and direction generally 

 accordant with Wolfs relative numbers of the sun-spots 

 and v/ith the well-known secular variation of the aurora. 

 The mean annual velocity increases from the period of 

 minimum to that of maximum sun-spots, and thence 

 decreases with the diminution of the sun-spots to the 

 minimum ; and from the period of maximum to that of 

 minimum sun-spots, the mean annual direction of the 

 wind changes from a westward to a more southerly 

 direction, while the change is in the opposite direction 

 from the minimum to the maximum sun-spot period. 



Mr. Blanford, the Government Meteorologist for 

 India, published quite recently a forecast of the weather of 

 the monsoon season now set in. Reasoning from the 

 unusually persistent high pressure then prevailing over 

 Northern India, the singular absence of abnormal varia- 

 tions of pressure over the same region, and the heavy 

 rainfall during the cold weather, he thinks it probable 

 that the monsoon current will be below its average 

 strength, that the rainfall will be more equally distributed 

 than last year, and that the monsoon will commence later 

 than usual in Upper India. 



On the occasion of the commemoration of the 400th 

 anniversary of the founding of Upsal University in Sep- 

 tember last, the Swedish Government published an Atlas 

 of fifty-one maps which had been prepared by Prof. 

 Hildebrandsson to show the direction of the upper cur- 

 rents of the atmosphere during 1875 ^nd 1876. About 

 the same time the Meteorological Society (London) pub- 

 lished thirty weather maps for March, 1876, prepared by- 

 Mr. Clement Ley, in illustration also of the upper cur- 

 rents. As regards the broad results arrived at, both 

 authors are substantially agreed, the results being that 

 while the surface winds blow inwards upon cyclonic areas 



