November 26, 1S91] 



NA TURE 



^7 



casts. They are instructed to make a careful study of the 

 climatology of their respective sections, both for their own use 

 as an aid in predicting and for publication for the information 

 of the public ; and they are directed to give particular attention 

 to the effect of the weather on the principal crops at their 

 various stages of growth, so as to be able to include in their 

 forecasts reference to this all-important subject. A vast im- 

 provement has been effected in the weather maps issued at 

 nearly ail the more important stations. They contain not only 

 the forecasts prepared at Washington and the local forecasts, 

 but the data on which the forecasts are based. With regard to 

 weather- signal display stations, Mr. Harrington makes a most 

 striking statement. On June 30 there were about 630 stations 

 to which the forecasts were telegraphed. On September 30 the 

 number was 1200 — an increase of about loo per cent. ; and 

 large numbers of new stations are being rapidly established. 

 Altogether, the Bureau is evidently in a state of high efficiency, 

 and has profited largely by the attention which has lately been 

 devoted to it by Congress. 



Mr. Harrington refers in his report to the enormous 

 accumulation of meteorological records now in the U.S. Weather 

 Bureau. These include the observations for the twenty years 

 during which the meteorological work was in the charge of the 

 Signal Service, and also those for the many preceding years 

 when it was in the charge of the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. 

 Harrington proposes to utilize these data by special studies by 

 officers of the Bureau. He also desires that they may be 

 thrown open to all students of meteorology who are competent 

 to use them, subject only to such restrictions as may suffice to 

 preserve them from injury. 



Referring to the International Conference of Meteoro- 

 logists at Munich, Mr. Harrington notes that it was attended by 

 four American delegates, of whom he himself was one. He 

 was much pleased with the cordial way in which European 

 meteorologists expressed appreciation of the meteorological work 

 done in the United States. He speaks especially of the interest 

 excited among students on this side of the Atlantic by the inter- 

 national bibliography of meteorology, begun by General Hazen 

 and published in part by General Greely. " Evidently," he 

 says, " the general sentiment in Europe is to the effect that the 

 work thus far done by the Signal Office is too important to be 

 left unfinished, and that the interests of meteorology and of 

 climatology alike demand that the Weather Bureau should 

 publish the complete work in proper style, after obtaining from 

 European co-labonrers all possible corrections 10 the manuscript 

 that has already been milleographed." Mr. Harrington s'udied 

 closely the meteorological methods adopted in Europe; and he 

 was particularly struck by the fact that the study of climate has, 

 in general, been prosecuted by European meteorologists to a 

 degree of refinement that has not yet been attained, and is, 

 perhaps, scarcely appreciated, in America. For instance, an 

 eminent climatologist, criticizing the location of some instru- 

 ments on a rise of ground and amid trees, possibly a hundred 

 feet above the surrounding plain, objected that these instru- 

 ments could not represent properly the climate of the surround- 

 ing country, but that they should have been placed in the open 

 flat fields near at hand. " If this person be correct," says Mr. 

 Harrington, "it is evident that the demands of agricultural 

 climatology are very different from those of dynamic meteoro- 

 logy or the study and prediction of daily weather, and it will be 

 an important result of our European journey if we shall have 

 received a decided stimulus in the direction of minute climato- 

 logy." 



Dr. E. Biese, the Director of the Meteorological Office of 

 Finland, has published the observations taken at Hclsingfors 

 during the year 1890. In addition to the ordinary hourly 

 NO. II 5 2, VOL. 45] 



observations and summaries, the volume contains hourly values 

 of atmospheric electricity. Owing to want of funds, the publica- 

 tion of the observations had ceased with those for 1883 ; but a 

 fresh subsidy to the institution has been granted by a decree of 

 the Emperor, so that the publication will be continued regularly 

 n future, and the arrears also worked off. A summary shows 

 that in 1890 rain fell on 178 dajs and snow on 84 days. The 

 temperature varied from 74°'S in June to 5°'3 in November, 

 giving an annual range of 69°"2. 



In a recent paper on the camel {Zeits. fiir -uiisen. Ceogr.) 

 Herr Lehmann refers, among other things, to its relations to 

 temperature and moisture. Neither the most broiling heat, nor 

 the most intense cold, nor extreme daily or yearly variations 

 hinder the distribution of the camel. It seems, indeed, that 

 the dromedary of the Sahara has better health there than in 

 more equably warm regions ; though, after a day of tropical heat, 

 the thermometer sometimes goes down several degrees below 

 freezing point, and daily variations of 33°*7 C. occur. In Semi. 

 palatinsk again, where the camel is found, the annual variation 

 of temperature sometimes reaches 87° "3. In Eastern Asia, 

 winter is the time the animals are made to work. In very 

 intense cold, they are sewn up in felt covers. Of course each 

 race of camel does best in the temperature conditions of its 

 home : a Soudan camel would not flourish in North-East Asia. 

 Camels are very sensitive to moisture. In the region of tropical 

 rains they are usually absent, and if they come into such with 

 caravans, the results of the rainy season are greatly feared. 

 The great humidity of the air explains the absence of the camel 

 from the northern slopes of the Atlas, and from well-wooded 

 Abyssinia. This sensitiveness expresses itself in the character 

 of different races. The finest, most noble-looking camels, with 

 short silk-like hair, are found in the interior of deserts (as in the 

 Tuarek region, in North Africa), and they cannot be used for 

 journeys to moist regions. Even in Fezzan (south of Tripoli) 

 the animals are shorter and fatter, with long coarse hair ; and in 

 Nile lands, and on coasts, it is the same. These animals, too, 

 are less serviceable as regards speed and endurance. Herr 

 Lehmann states it as a law that the occurrence of the camel finds 

 its limits wherever the monthly average vapour tension in the air 

 exceeds 12 mm. 



Last week Prof. Cossar Ewart lectured on " Scottish Zoology" 

 to the newly-formed Edinburgh University Darwinian Society, 

 of which he is President. Having given an account of some 

 of the eminent investigators who have devoted themselves to 

 zoology in Scotland, Prof. Ewart spoke of the need for the en- 

 couragement of research at the Scottish Universities. In the 

 case of his own department, it ought, he thought, to be possible 

 for him to say to any exceptionally able student, after the com- 

 pletion of his curriculum, " If you are willing to remain for a 

 year or more, I shall be glad to recommend your being elected 

 a research scholar, and to arrange for your obtaining a small sum 

 from a research fund to provide material, &c., required in any 

 investigation you may undertake." Were there two research 

 scholars, or even but one, at work in each of the scientific 

 departments. Prof. Ewart thinks the Scottish Universities would, 

 before long, have a reputation altogether higher and grander 

 than they at present enjoy, to the gain of science and, in 

 all probability, the further amelioration of humanity. 



In his interesting Rectorial address, at Edinburgh, on the 

 use of the imagination, Mr. Goschen referred to the need for 

 imaginative activity in the exact sciences. It would have been 

 difficult for him to say anything new on a subject with which so 

 many distinguished thinkers have dealt ; but the ideas he set 

 forth about science and the imagination were sound and well 

 expressed. Referring to the work of Sir William Thomson, he 

 said: "When I think of your fellow-countryman. Sir William 



