August 19, 1920] 



NATURE 



791 



city, noted for its strong Faculty of Applied Science, 

 and not less is the city celebrated for its fine Technical 

 High School, wherein industries and industrial pro- 

 cesses are made to serve the highest educational pur- 

 poses for its three thousand day students. At night 

 the school is attended by six thousand apprentices in 

 the various trades the equipment covers. In short, 

 Canada, in proportion to its population, is well pro- 

 vided with institutions of university rank, and in the 

 near future she will have educational facilities second 

 to no other country in the world. Prof. Barker is also 

 not less loud in his praise of the educational activities 

 and institutions of the States, especially of the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in many 

 respects one of the finest institutions in the world, 

 wherein nothing is spared to make the courses good 

 and exp>erimental and research work so efficient 

 that it cannot be left out of the industrial sequence, 

 with the result that the institution is simply flooded 

 with students who are inspired with the possibilities 

 of discovery. He speaks highly of the provision for 

 textile training and education, and especially of the 

 fine school at Lowell (Fig. 2), which represents for 

 the textile industries what the Institute of Technology 

 of Boston reoresents for mining and engineering. The 

 report is full of apt observation upon educational and 

 industrial aims and methods. 



Sunshine in the United States.^ 



nPHE United States Monthly Weather Review for 

 -*• January, 1920, contains a discussion on "Sun- 

 shine in the United States " by Mr. J. B. Kincer, 

 Meteorologist attached to the Weather Bureau, 

 Washington, from observations mostly for the twenty 

 years from 1895 to 19 14. 



Data are given showing the actual amount of sun- 

 shine in hours and tenths and the percentage of the 

 possible amount, both methods having their special 

 advantages. Charts and diagram^ show the mean 

 solar time of sunrise and sunset, and the average 

 length of day, sunrise to sunset. The seasonal and 

 annual distributions of sunshine are given in per- 

 centages of the possible amount, and a table shows 

 for each month and for the year the percentage of 

 possible amount of sunshine for all stations where 

 records are made. 



Some dissatisfaction is expressed at the records of 

 the automatic instruments available, as they in no 

 way indicate the different degrees of sunshine inten- 

 sity — an anomaly shared by all other countries. In 

 describing three forms of sunshine recorders in use, the 

 Campbell-Stokes, the Jordan, and the electrical thermo- 

 metric recorder, which is said now to be in general 

 use by the Weather Bureau, the Review states : "The 

 Campbell-Stokes burning recorder, consisting of a lens 

 or burning-glass which scorches, during bright sun- 

 shine, a trace on a strip of cardboard placed at the 

 proper focal distance and adjusted bv clockwork to 

 revolve with the sun"; this description seems open 

 to objection, as the card is stationary, and the sun 

 revolving impinges its image on the card bearing the 

 time-scale. 



Distribution of sunshine with geographical position 

 is well treated. For the year as a whole the least 

 amount of sunshine occurs along the North Pacific 

 coast, where it is only 40 per cent, of the daylight 

 hours. The maximum amount in the United Statfs 

 occurs in the south-west; in the Lower Colorado 

 River vallev the duration of sunfhine is^ qo per cent, 

 of the total number of hours from sunrise to sunset. 

 July is the month of maximum amount in nearly one- 



1 From U.S Monthly Weather Review, January, 1920, voU xlriii., 

 rp. 12-17 a-id cha'is i-iv ; November, joio, vol. xlvii., pp. 794-95. 



NO. 2651, VOL. 105] 



half of the country, including all the northern 

 districts. 



Data are given showing the average annual per- 

 centage of days clear, partly cloudy, and cloudy. 

 Dealing with diurnal variations in sunshine, it is 

 stated that the amount is least during the early 

 morning hours, with a secondary minimum in the late 

 afternoon. The greatest amount occurs near midday. 



Prof. R. de C. Ward, of the Harvard University, 

 contributed an article to the U.S. Monthly Weather 

 Review for November, 1919, bearing the title "Biblio- 

 graphic Note on Sunshine in the United States." 

 Foreseeing the issue of a series of new sunshine charts 

 for the United States, a brief account is given of 

 previous sunshine charts issued. 



Reference is made to work done by van Bebber in 

 i8q6 and by Glaser in 1912, and it is mentioned that 

 " the available material was confessedly very in- 

 adequate." In charts prepared by Prof. A. J. Henry in 

 1898 the percentages of sunshine were obtained by 

 subtracting the mean annual cloudiness from 100, and 

 a map of normal annual sunshine compiled from 

 observations at the Weather Bureau stations from 

 1871 to 1908 inclusive seems to have been obtained in 

 the same wav. The system seems open to serious 

 objection, and is far less satisfactory than using the 

 records of the automatic sunshine instrument. 



C. H. 



The Peat Resources of Ireland. 



T^HE Fuel Research Board has issued as a Special 

 -*■ Report (No. 2) a lecture on the above subject 

 delivered by Prof. P. F. Purcell before the Royal 

 Dublin Society last year. The importance of using 

 the lower grade fuels has been greatly enhanced by 

 the enormous rise in the price of our higher grade 

 staple fuel, coal ; and Sir George Beilby, in his intro- 

 ductory remarks to the Report, ascribes the revival 

 of interest in peat as a fuel not only to the general 

 scarcity of fuel, but also to the great and apparently 

 permanent increase in the cost of coal. 



The peat resources of Ireland are of paramount 

 interest in that country, where the bogs cover one- 

 seventh of the area, and Prof. Purcell estimates that 

 the }>eat reserves in these bogs are more than ten times 

 those of the proved coal reserves of that country. The 

 estimated "anhydrous peat" is 3,700.000,000 tons, 

 equivalent to 5,000,000,000 tons of average air-dried 

 peat. Sixty-two per cent, of the farmsteads are 

 entirely dependent upon peat fuel, and it is estimated 

 that the annual consumption is between 6,oco,ooo and 

 8,000,000 tons. 



The problem of the utilisation of peat is, as is well 

 known, one of the economical removal of excess 

 water, the averaj?e content of which is about 90 per 

 cent. The effect of water is, perhaps, best emphasised 

 when it is stated that " with 80 per cent, present, the 

 II per cent, of dry peat will just be sufficient to 

 evaporate the 8q per cent, of water." In the natural 

 process of air-drying f>eat, difliculties of a practical 

 and economic nature are met with ; thus the drying 

 season is only from five to six months. In winter, 

 water freezing in the blocks causes their breaking 

 down, and the whole year's supplv has to be won in 

 the limited dry season of the vear. " It thus haopens 

 that a great number of hands are required for a 

 portion of the year, and fpw for the remainder," and 

 these considerations furnish a very stronj? incentive 

 to the invention of economical methods of artificial 

 drving. 



In Prof. Purrell's opinion, in spite of the manv 

 methods which have been tried for the removal of 



