Vol. XXV. No. 4.] 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
57 
be cured, at least during its first period — and this 
is all that i.s required. The man who shall dis- 
cover this method will certainly be one of the 
greatest benefactors of mankind. 
As to the photography of colors, the facts com- 
municated by M. Lippmann are certainly very in- 
teresting; but there remains much to be done 
before we can obtain photographs of ourselves 
with our natural — or j(w-natural iu the case of 
; some ladies (none of which, certainly, are readers 
[Of the Popular Science News)— colors. At all 
[, events, photographs of the solar spectrum may be 
fhad which are quite permanent, and which do not 
I fade when exposed to the dayliglit, as did the plio- 
itographs made many years ago by M. Becquerel. 
[It is probable tliat photographs may some day be 
r obtained in which the skin, hair, eyes, etc., will 
' bear their real and natural colors ; but it may be 
questioned whether we will like tins much. Wax- 
works are certainly admirable as concerns like- 
ness, when well made; but nobody would like to 
have the w ax effigy of his friends or relatives — it 
seems too living. On tlie other hand, if we do 
like colors, since oil pictures are agreeable to our 
eyes, we must not forget that the colors which 
the painter spreads on the canvas are not the 
true natural colors of the objects. Experience will 
tell, but it seems probable that at first, at all 
events, the public feeling will he against the nat- 
ural-colored photograplis. 
The very cold season which the whole of Eu- 
rope has enjoyed, figuratively, from the end of 
November to the first days of February, has, of 
course, done a gre.at deal of harm. Mankind has 
suflTered much, many trades or industries being 
paralysed by the very fact of the cold; the ill- 
clad poor have been freezing ; the winter vegeta- 
bles have all perished on their stalks, and the 
seeds already sown in autumn must be replaced, 
as none of them can have withstood the winter. 
No doubt many animals have also suffered much ; 
wild ducks and fowl have been seen in Paris, in 
the middle of the Seine, near the Tuileries ; flocks 
of starlings have immigrated to town, trying to 
keep bodj' and soul together, the country aftbrd- 
ing nothing eatable worth mentioning ; and wolves 
have been rambling about near the humafi — and 
especially mutton — folk, in a desperate struggle 
for life, which usually ended in agonies for the 
sheep. Even under favorable conditions most 
animals have suffered from the eff'ects of the cold, 
and in the menagerie of the Paris Museum thirty- 
two mammals and sixty-six birds have perished. 
'ITie Afiican elephant has caught a bad toothache, 
— and it is presumed that when such a tooth as 
that of an elephant begins to ache it does the 
thing thoroughly, — the rJiinoceros has been af- 
flicted with a slvin disease, and the hippopotamus 
— an old citizen which has inhabited Pai-is since 
|18o5 — declares that the thing is really unpleasant, 
'as he is as thoroughly frost-bitten as ever an hip- 
popotamus has been. But there is nothing won- 
derful in these afflictions brought by the cold 
weather to tropical animals : the only wonder is 
that they di<l not all die, as many persons some- 
what expected, hoping thus to have a good reason 
[for suppressing the menagerie of the Museum, 
twhich is a positive sliame to a city like Paris. 
pMany animals, on the other hand, which it was 
fexpected to see rapidly die under the effects of the 
Icold, have withstood it admirably; and those that 
{belong to species which multiply in the menagerie 
are to be subjected to an experiment proposed by 
VXL. Milne Edwards. 'ITiey ai-e to be turned loose 
iin a portion of the Marls' forest, in order to see 
fwhether they can thrive in a wild state. M. Milne 
[Edwards seems rather hasty^when he thinks that 
the experiment will succeed because the animals 
— mostly deer from Japan, China, Ceylon, India, 
etc., born in France — have withstood a cold win- 
ter, (^old is only one of the very numerous agents 
by wliich a species may be prevented from taking 
ahold in a new country, and there are any amount 
of reasons — which we, perhaps, cannot appreciate 
— which make acclimatization a very difficult pro- 
cess. I remember that twenty years ago, after 
the Franco-German war. a large host of new 
plants appeared suddenly in a number of places 
where they had never been seen before. They 
were all useful plants, being good fodder for 
horses and oxen. They had been unconsciously 
brought by the troops, who carried the fodder foi' 
their horses with them ; and this fodder was 
mainly of Bussian, Italian, and Algerian origin. 
Seeds got loose from the dried plants, fell about, 
and Anally sprouted. In this manner hundreds 
of useful plants seemed to do very well, and man^ 
were sanguine in their expectations, h^ping to see 
part of these species acclimatized. They were all 
the more hopeful because the plants withstood 
very well a very cold winter (1870-71). The 
plants, however, all died out gradually, and no 
vestiges of this adventitious flora are to be found 
at present. Why tliey died we cannot tell : there 
was some agent, in the struggle for life, which 
was against them, and defeated them. Any 
amount of similar cases might be quoted, all 
showing that real acclimatization — sucli as that 
of the sparrow in the United States or the i-abbit 
in Australia — is a very rare occurrence. There 
are reasons which we do not yet perceive which 
prevent animals and plants from thriving in re- 
gions where it would seem that they ought to be- 
come prosperous, and the study of these reasons 
and agents does not seem to be easy to accom- 
plish. H. 
Paris, Feb. 25, 1891. 
<♦> 
[Specially Observed for Popdlar Science News.] 
.METEOKOLOGV FOR FEBRUARY, 1891, 
WITH REVIEW OF THE WINTER. 
TEMPERATURE. 
Average Thermometer. 
Lowest. 
Highest. 
Range. 
AtTA.M 
At2P. M 
At9P. M 
Whole month .... 
Second average . . . 
28.07° 
35.48' 
30.32° 
30.62° 
30.54° 
3° 
19° 
9° 
3° 
3- 
48° 
59° 
,i4° 
59° 
59° 
4i>° 
40" 
4.5° 
56° 
58° 
Last 21 Februarys . . 
Second average . . . 
28.20° 
26.01° 
( 19.31° 
( In 1875. 
19.52° 
32.65° ( 
iu 1890. i 
32.28° 
12.84° 
12.76° 
Winter of 1890-91 . . . 
Last 21 Winters . . . 
28.36° 
26.49° 
■ 2° 
I 21.85° 
j in 1874. 
59° 
33.90° » 
in 1889. i 
57° 
12.05° 
The present February has been a very change- 
able month, and that iu several respects, as will 
appear below. The lowest point reached by the 
mercury, at the hours of observation, was 3° 
above zero, on the 5th and 1,5th ; while the coldest 
days were the 4th and 14th, averaging 16° and 
14°. The highest point, 59°, was on the 25th, 
wliich was also the warmest day — 53.66°. Sud- 
den changes occurred on the 5th and 15th, the 
temperature lising 23° iu seven hours on each of 
those days ; and between the 15th and 16th 39° in 
twenty-four hours, with a range of 29° on the 
15th. The lowest daily range was 5°, on the 10th 
and 20th. The entire month was 4.42° above the 
mean of the last twenty-one Februarys. The 
daily extremes of February during this period 
have been —15° iu 1871, and 60° in 1880,— a range 
of 75°. 
The mean temperature of the past winter has 
been 1.87° above the average in twenty-one years, 
with extremes of 2° on December .30, and 59° on 
February 25. The last two are the only winters 
in twenty-one years when the mercury has not 
fallen to zero at the hours of ol)servation. 
Tlie face of the sky, in 84 observations, gave 38 
fair, 9 cloudy, 18 ovei-cast, 10 rainy, and snowy, 
— a percentage of 45.2 fair. The average fair the 
last twenty-one Februarys has been 56.4, with ex- 
tremes of 30.0 in 1884, and 73.4 in 1887. Notice 
how many rainy observations for a short winter 
month ; the average number in twenty-one Febru- 
arys is only 4.6. The present February has been 
the least fair, with only two exceptions, in twenty- 
one jears. 
The pet cent, fair the past winter was 45.9, 
while the mean of the last twenty-one w inters has 
been 53.6, with extremes of 38.1 in 1883-84, and 
87.0 in 1877-78. The pi-esent winter has been the 
least fair, with a single exception, in twenty-one 
years. 
PKECIPITATIOX. 
The amoiMit the past month, including 17 inches 
of melted snow, w.as 5.51 inches, well distributed. 
The average amount the last twenty-three Febru- 
arys has been 4.83 inches, with extremes of 0.55 
iu 1877, and 11.72 in 1886. The principal snow- 
storm was from thi- 7th to the 9tli, when about 10 
inches fell, furnishing good sleighing for about a 
week. 
The amount of precipitation the past winter, in- 
cluding 42 inches of melted snow, was 23.01 
inches, the largest amount iu twenty-three win- 
ters, the average being 13.89, wi<h extremes, of 
6.83 in 1877, and 23.01 in 1891. 'Hie amount of 
sleighing has been about twenty-five days. 
PRESSURE. 
The average pressure the past month was 30.008 
inches, with extremes of 29.39 on the 3d, and .30.55 
on the 15th, — a range of 1.16 inch. The luean for 
the last eighteen I'ehriiarys has been 29.976, with 
extremes of 29.834 an 1 30.138— a range of .304. 
The sum of the daily variations was 12.29 inches, 
giving a mean daily movement of .439 inch, while 
this average the last eighteen Februarys has been 
..300, with extremes of .162 and .439— a range of 
.277. The daily chang('s the past month have 
been greater than in any month on my record. 
On six days the movements avei-aged .71 inch — 
showing great and sudden changes in the atmos- 
pheric i>ressure. 
The mean pressure the past winter was 29.971 
inches, which is also the exact average of the last 
eighteen winters. The mean daily movement the 
last winter was .346 incli, while that of the last 
eighteen winters has been only .208. 
WINDS. 
Tlie average direction of the wind the past 
month was W. 11° 32' N., while the average for 
the last tweiity-tv\o Februarys has been W. 26° 
55' N., with extremes of W. 5° 5' S. iu 1875, and 
W. 60° 57' N. in 1870,— a range of 66° 2', or nearly 
.six points of the compass. The relative progres- 
sive distance travelled by the winds the past 
month was .50.01 units, and the last twenty-two 
Februarys 1,076 units, an average of 48.91,— show- 
ing less easterly winds than usual. 
The mean direction of the wind the last winter 
was W. 23° 32' N., and for the last twenty-two 
winters W. 31° 21' \. The distance travelled the 
last winter was 160.3 units, and the last twenty- 
two winters 2,721, an aver.age of 123.7 units,— also 
showing j^less easterly winds than usual. The 
