450 



NATURE 



[September 8, 1892 



rapidly cleared, and the wind became northerly, while at Green- 

 wich Observatory a temperature of 4° below freezing point was 

 registered on the grass ; but the more northern and western 

 parts of the Kingdom were still disturbed by depressions from 

 the westward. These have subsequently spread over the 

 greater part of the country, and winds have again become 

 south-westerly generally. The facts shown by the Weekly 

 Weather Report for the period ending the 3rd instant, are 

 interesting :— The rainfall exceeded the mean in all districts, 

 the greatest excess being in the west of Scotland and the north- 

 west of England, and the fall was more than twice as much 

 as the normal amount over the Kingdom generally. Tempera- 

 ture was below the mean in all districts, except the south of 

 England and the Channel Islands, while in Scotland the lowest 

 shade minima were between 32° and 35°. 



Prof. Mohorovieii:;, ofAgram, writes to the /T/^/^(?w^^V<r>^^ 

 Zeitschrift for August d preliminary notice of a most destruc- 

 tive wind-rush, which occurred at Novska, in Slavonia, on 

 May 31 last, and which he has been requested by the govern- 

 ment to investigate on the spot. He reports that as the train 

 left Novska station soon after 4 p.m. on that day, a sudden 

 darkness came on ; all the carriages of the train were thrown off 

 the line with a great crash, and three of them were carried by 

 the force of the wind to a distance of about 100 feet, the violence 

 of the wind being aided by the bursting of two water-spouts 

 over the railway. The tornado then traversed a primeval forest 

 which lies to the north-east of Novska, tearing up over 150,000 

 large trees, and stretching them on the ground round the centre 

 of the disturbance with the regularity of arrows around a baro- 

 metric minimum of a weather chart, in a lane of about \\ to 2 

 miles in diameter. Among the curious instances is one of a 

 girl, seventeen years old, being carried unhurt for a distance of 

 over 300 feet. Were it not for the trustworthy source whence this 

 infoimation is obtained we should consider it to be greatly exag- 

 gerated, but Prof. Mohorovieie states he crossed the forest three 

 times and carefully noted the position of the fallen trees, and he 

 will no doubt give an official report of the occurrence later on, 

 accompanied by meteorological data from various stations. 



In vol. xiv, of A us dem Archiv der Deutschen Seewarte there 

 is a discussion by E. Herrmann on the storms of the German 

 coast in the year.i 1878-1887, based upon an examination of the 

 observations taken at forty-seven stations, and containing 

 monthly and yearly charts showing the prevalence of the winds 

 from the various points of the compass. The results show a 

 great preponderance of storms in the Baltic as compared with 

 the North Sea ; in ten years 191 storms are recorded in the 

 Baltic and loi in the North Sea. The decrease of storms in 

 the North Sea in summer is also much more marked than in 

 the Baltic. The maximum of westerly storms occurs in 

 December, and that of the easterly storms in March and April. 

 In the summer months most storms occur in August. The 

 change of direction of the storms from south-west to north-west 

 occurs most frequently in February, March, October, and 

 November ; and from north-west to south-west in January, Feb- 

 ruary, and October. 



In a recent valuable memoir to the Berlin Academy on 

 Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere (fourth of a series). Prof, 

 von Bezold considers the cases of supersaturation with vapour, 

 and of " overcooling " (regarding the latter it may be stated 

 that clouds have been observed at a temperature below freezing, 

 but having no ice-particles, — purely water clouds). A sudden 

 cessation of these states, he shows, must result in rapid rise of 

 air-pressure, which is generally of short duration, unless con- 

 ditions are present which prevent its descent again. As such 

 variations of pressure are characteristic of thunderstorms, the 

 author goes on to investigate the ^^/^ of supersaturation andover- 

 NO. II 93, VOL. 46] 



coolings in these phenomena, and he shows how various move- 

 ments and changes in form of thunderclouds, and* the origin of 

 hail and other phenomena, may be explained by them. He is 

 of opinion that much thunderstorm rain has, high up, the form 

 of hail or sleet, and the large drops are simply melted hail or 

 sleet particles, these forms playing a more important part in 

 thunderstorms than is commonly supposed. 



A Reuter's telegram from Catania, dated September 2, 

 announced that the eruption of Etna had broken out afresh, and 

 that the chestnut woods on the mountain slopes were being de- 

 vastated by the lava, which was pouring down the mountain in 

 one dense mass, instead of flowing in two separate streams, as 

 it did before. . . , , 



The Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society has issued its 

 Transactions for 1891-92. We are glad tO see that this Society, 

 which has now entered upon its 24th year, continues to prosper, 

 the roll of members numbering 250, and the balance-sheet being 

 very satisfactory. The catalogue of the library, which is printed 

 in the current number of the Transactions, occupies 43 pages. 

 Dr. Wheeler, in his presidential address, discourses on the 

 changes which ha.ve taken place in recent times in the dis- 

 tribution of some species of insects, more especially of the 

 typical insect fauna of the old, fenland of Huntingdonshire 

 and Cambridgeshire and of the Norfolk Broads. Dr. Plow- 

 right contributes a paper on " Neolithic Man in West Norfolk," 

 with illustrations, by Mr. Worthington Smith, of a number of 

 flint implements found on Massingham Heath, near Lynn, and 

 a description of the site of an ancient British village in the 

 same locality. This is followed by a paper on the St. Helen's 

 Swan Pit, in Norwich, where, towards the end of August, from 

 80 to 100 cygnets may yearly be found gathered together for the 

 purpose of being fatted for the table. Mr. Southwell, the 

 writer of the paper, also gives some interesting particulars of the 

 breeding of the Mute Swans, which abound on the Norfolk 

 waters. Mr, Clement Reid follows with a paper "On the 

 Natural History of Isolated Ponds," as illustrating the dis- 

 persal of the fauna and flora of a district in recent times ; and 

 Mr. O. V. Aplin contributes a paper "On the Distribution in 

 Great Britain and Ireland of the Red-backed Shrike." This is 

 followed by the eleventh annual report on the Herring Fishery 

 of Yarmouth and Lowestoft, by which it appears that the 

 enormous number of 290,650,800 of these fish were landed at 

 those ports in 1891. There are other minor papers " On, the 

 Meteorological Features of 1891," by Mr. Preston, and 

 shorter notes on the "Marine Fishes of Yarmouth," the 

 " Botanical Occurrences of the Past Year," and other matters 

 of interest. 



According to a report compiled by the French Statistical 

 Bureau, the vineyards of Europe cover 22,973,902 acres. Italy 

 comes first with 8,575,000 acres, followed by France with 

 4,592,500, Spain with 4,012,500, Austria and Hungary with 

 i>637,Soo, and Germany with 300,000 acres. The annual 

 average production of the European vineyards is put at 

 2,652,300,000 gallons; Italy producing (in round figures) 

 697,000,000 gallons, France and Spain 608,000,000 each, 

 Austria-Hungary 208,000,000, and Germany 51,000,000 gal- 

 lons. Spain exports most wine (200,000,000 gallons), but it is 

 chiefly common wine, and it is estimated at only ;^i2,ooo,ooo, 

 while the value of the 56,000,000 gallons exported from France 

 is put at nearly as much. Italy comes third with exports of 

 45,000,000 gallons, estimated at ;,^2,8oo,ooo, while Austria and 

 Hungary exported only 16,500,000 gallons worth ;{"i, 720,000. 



The American journal Electricity notes that Prof. Elisha 

 Gray, Chairman of the World's Congress Committee on an 

 Electrical Congress, has returned to America from Europe. He 



