42 



NATURE 



[March 20, 1919 



war, considerable interest attaches to its efficient 

 recovery. 



The author is to be commended on a soHd piece 

 of work, which cannot fail in the long run to be 

 of xnuch use to the vegetable oil industries. 



E. F. A. 



TEMPERATURE IN CHINA. 

 La Temperature en Chine et a quelques Stations 

 voisines d'apres des observations quotidiennes. 

 Compilees par H. Gauthier, S.J. 3 vols. 

 Pp. xlviii + 784. (Shanghai: Imprimerie de la 

 Mission Catholique, 191 8.) 



SINCE the publication of Buchan's compre- 

 hensive " Report on Atmospheric Circula- 

 tion," the accepted unit of time in the compila- 

 tion of climatological data has been the month,- 

 and daily averages of meteorological elements 

 have rarely been calculated. The inadequacy of 

 monthly, and the need for daily, normals have 

 often been urged, but the preparation of the latter 

 requires considerable leisure, a rare commodity in 

 most meteorological services. 



The present set of three volumes provides daily 

 averages of temperature for China and its vicinity 

 in the most complete and satisfying manner, deal- 

 ing with one hundred stations, for periods varying 

 from one to forty-four years. The data have been 

 prepared by Father H. Gauthier, S.J., director of 

 the meteorological observatory of Zikawei, which 

 is also the headquarters of the meteorological 

 service of China. The work was obviously a 

 labour of love, from the completeness of the tables 

 and the full discussion. The volumes contain a 

 long and interesting introduction, a set of charts 

 of monthly and annual isotherms of China, with 

 other diagrams, and 784 pages of tables. The 

 introduction alone is a valuable treatise on the 

 climate of China, containing a full discussion and 

 analysis of all elements at Zikawei, including 

 some, like ozone, not generally dealt with, and 

 also a summary of the changes in the meteorology 

 of China month by month. 



The harmonic analysis of the annual variation 

 of the meteorological elements at Zikawei sug- 

 gests a study of the influence of various factors 

 — insolation, pressure, wind, evaporation, etc. — on 

 the temperature. The annual curve is built up, 

 step by step, from these data in a very instructive 

 way by the gradual modification of the sym- 

 metrical curve due to heat supplied by the sun as 

 each additional factor is brought in. The final 

 result is to obtain a very close approximation to 

 the mean temperature of each month, and the 

 procedure is repeated with almost equal success 

 for other stations — Irkutsk, Peking, and Hong 

 Kong — for which, however, the author has to 

 bewail the absence of important data like the 

 figures of evaporation. 



Other notes on the geographical f-actors influ- 

 encing temperature follow, but the raison d'etre 

 of the book is the set of tables. Of these, 730 

 pages are devoted to the daily averages of tem- 

 perature at one hundred stations arranged in order 

 of latitude, each day occupving two pages. The 

 NO. 2577, VOL. 103] 



details given include the raw daily means, the 

 same corrected for altitude and also smoothed, 

 the mean and extreme maxima and minima, and 

 the daily range. Corresponding figures are given 

 for 1916 alone. 



The author refrains from drawing elaborate 

 conclusions from the figures, but contents himself 

 with laying them before the meteorologists of the 

 world as a contribution to the knowledge of a 

 country long, but erroneously, considered as 

 meteorologically unexplored. He points out, how- 

 ever, the value which such a set of data has for 

 the study of the connection between solar heat 

 and the annual variation of temperature. There 

 are,, indeed, a number of problems clustered round 

 this point which can be solved only by a study of 

 the daily means of temperature — for example, the 

 cold spells of spring and the warm spells of 

 autumn. The reality and periodicity of these^ — the 

 Ice Saints and the Indian summer — can be deter- 

 mined only by a study of daily averages. The 

 tables, for instance, appear to show that over 

 the whole seaboard of China there is a quite 

 decided lapse of temperature between June 4 and 

 II, and there are possibly others which would 

 be revealed by a detailed study. Another problem 

 is the incidence of the monsoon in China, in 

 which, of course, temperature is the ruling factor. 

 The details of the complete reversal of type from 

 the cold, dry, anticyclonic conditions of winter to 

 the maritime conditions of surrfmcr, and still more 

 the reverse changes from summer to winter, 

 cannot be brought out entirely by monthly charts. 

 r"or example, those of August and September in 

 Middle China show a reversal of type from the 

 land warmer than the sea to the land colder than 

 the sea,, with a corresponding change in the pre- 

 dominant wind direction, and the intervening 

 period of transition, which is not without interest, 

 is unrepresented until the daily charts are drawn. 



The progress of the seasons is further illus- 

 trated by marginal notes of a phenological nature, 

 especially dealing with the migration of birds, 

 and by meteorological details showing the con- 

 ditions under which extremes have occurred. It 

 appears that there is a tendency for individual 

 days to l)e hot or cold over a large extent of 

 eastern Asia. The cold days occur, as one would 

 expect, with large and intense areas of high 

 pressure in the north or north-west of China, while 

 the warm days occur in the presence of depres- 

 sions, especially when the latter are so situated 

 that they cause south-easterly winds in winter or 

 south-westerly winds in summer ; thus the great 

 heat-waves occur when shallow depressions, not 

 sufficiently intense to cause great cloudiness, pass 

 north-east of Shanghai. 



The author expresses his conviction that the 

 value of his work will rise above its possible 

 deficiencies. That conviction is certainly justified, 

 but may one add' a hope that, in the full volume 

 of plates which is promised to accompany the 

 tables, the printer will succeed in making the 

 denominations of the isotherms more legible? 



C. E. B. 



