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NATURE 



\Atigust 14, 1879 



directly they arrive at Atlantic ports ; by the aid of which, 

 warnings may be framed, and wired to Europe, of such 

 storms as may appear to threaten its coasts. In this 

 connection it is not possible to overestimate the import- 

 ance of a telegi'aph wire to Faro and Iceland, by which 

 warnings of many storms thus seen approaching our 

 coasts, could be issued one or two days earlier at least 

 than at present. 



Mr. Clement Ley contributes an extremely interesting, 

 and in some respects a very valuable lecture, on clouds 

 considered as weather-signs, accompanied with nine well- 

 executed illustrations in colours. Mr. Ley has been a 

 close observer of the forms and movements of clouds 

 almost from infancy, being even then strongly under the 

 fascinating spell of their mystery and beauty. Habits of 

 close and accurate observation were thus formed and the 

 tendency has become so inveterate that to this day a 

 twelfth part of his waking existence is spent in observing 

 the clouds. For several years he has given the closest 

 observation and study to a strict examination of the rela- 

 tions of different clouds to cyclones, anticyclones, and to 

 thunderstorms, in other words, to changes of weather. 

 It is the results of this examination which form the most 

 valuable part of the lecture, these results being of the 

 utmost importance to the isolated observer, who may 

 take the trouble to follow up the subject, in enabling him 

 with better success to forecast the weather though aided 

 only by his own observations. A treatment of the subject 

 with greater fulness than is possible in a single lecture 

 would be warmly welcomed by meteorologists and all 

 others interested in weather. 



In one of the lectures it is stated with much emphasis 

 that " the great need of every branch of meteorology is 

 neither more observations nor more money (though 

 neither of these is to be despised), but more brains, more 

 hard workers, more deep thinkers." In a certain sense 

 this is true, but in a wider sense it does not represent the 

 most pressing needs of meteorology. In the last lecture 

 of the scries, Mr. Scott justly remarks that as regards 

 synoptic work on a large scale, we may look our critics in 

 the face and boldly ask for more observations, no matter 

 how our shelves may be bending beneath the weight 

 of undiscussed records. The truth is, those who are 

 engaged with original researches in meteorology find 

 themselves ever and anon seriously hampered, if not 

 completely arrested in their work for want of the data of 

 observation. We are unaware that any systems of obser- 

 vation at present exist which could furnish, for example, 

 the data for the determination of the horizontal or ver- 

 tical meteorological gradients, or for ascertaining how 

 far and with what modifications the influence of the sea 

 extends inland. Nay even, though thanks mainly to the 

 indomitable energy of Mr. Symons, there are upwards of 

 2,000 gauges recording the rainfall of the British Isles, 

 the number, not to mention positions, of these gauges, are 

 too inadequate to admit of even a rude guess being formed 

 as to the quantity of vapour abstracted from the air in the 

 form of rain or snow during any of the storms that sweep 

 across the country. Much less can we, without largely 

 increased observation, give an indication of the varying 

 hygrometric and thermometric states of the atmospheric 

 currents to windward and leeward of the regions of 

 large rainfall in Great Britain. Meteorologists, no less 



than astronomers, had cause to deplore a great loss in 

 the death of Leverrier, the keenest sighted of physicists 

 and prince of organisers of systems of observation, one of 

 his last works being the establishment of a system of 

 observation, by which the propagation of rain, hail, and 

 other weather phenomena, could be followed from com- 

 mune to commune over France. With such results as 

 may be expected from this system, and from General 

 Myer's magnificent scheme of monthly meteorological 

 charts for the whole of the northern hemisphere, which 

 will also bring into the field thousands of fresh observers, 

 physical data leading towards the solution of some of the 

 great meteorological problems will be supplied, without 

 which observational data, mere brain-work — such is the 

 complexity of the problems to be dealt with — would prove 

 either useless or positively mischievous. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Farming for Pleasure and Profit. By Arthur Roland. 

 Edited by W. H. Ablett. (London : Chapman and 

 Hall, 1879.) 



This small book has the defects as well as the merits 

 which might have been expected in the work of an ama- 

 teur farmer. His own practice seems usually sound and 

 sometimes ingenious, but his explanations and advice 

 cannot always be safely trusted. When he tells us what 

 he has himself done, we listen with attention ; when he 

 offers us page after page full of antiquated veterinary 

 nostrums, we cannot feel edified. We did not know till 

 now that foot-and-mouth disease was epidemic j the cause 

 and cure of apthse (sic) is not quite adequately given on 

 p. 205 ; and we should certainly hesitate before adopting 

 the following treatment (p. 191) for a cow suffering from 

 moor-ill ; — " Some insert a seton in the dewlap and take 

 away ten pounds of blood in very severe cases. A recipe 

 has been given to administer, in very obstinate ones, six 

 drachms of aloes, twelve ounces of sulphur, and sixteen 

 drops of croton oil, the first day, in addition to a blood- 

 letting of ten ounces," and so on with further directions 

 of the heroic order. When Mr. Roland tells us of all the 

 breeds of cows, of the cheese-factory system, and of a 

 dozen other matters, of which, so far as we can learn, he 

 has had no actual experience, we feel that his space and 

 our time might hare been more profitably occupied. That 

 a good deal of information, and not a little amusement 

 into the bargain, may be got out of Mr. Roland's book, 

 is not to be denied, however. Whether " a great number 

 of persons who would gladly supplement their incomes, 

 if they could see their way clear to do it, by entering into 

 rural occupations which are congenial to their tastes," 

 would be able to follow the lead of Mr. Roland in his 

 farming practice may be gravely doubted. It is not 

 every amateur pig-feeder who will be so lucky as to find 

 " a good pork- butcher, doing a superior trade, and ready 

 to give nearly thirty per cent, more than could be ob- 

 tained by selling young porkers haphazard." Nor will 

 the amateur pea-grower always be able to adopt the fol- 

 lowing excellent and economical plan of disposing of his 

 produce. Mr. Roland stows his green peas ready shelled 

 in two flat wicker baskets under the first-class railway 

 carriage in which he daily travels to town. He finds that 

 the landlord of the hotel where he dines in the city will 

 give him one shilling a quart for these peas, fetching 

 them from the cloak-room of the station where they have 

 been deposited. This ingenious method of marketing 

 hardly admits, however, of general adoption ; and, more- 

 over, the railway authorities might have something to say 

 about this plan of evading payment of carriage. Mr. 

 Roland's previous attempts to dispose of cabbages and 

 turnips (pp. 16 and 17) were less satisfactory in their 



