Maech 1G, 1883.] 



• KNOWLEDGE 



165 



XIO.OSO in all, including .£750 for recasting Big Ben. Sir 

 C. Barry's iron frame cost XG,COO, and his hands and dials 

 alone cost £"),."5.'U, or ,£11,034 for the architect's appendages 

 to the clock and bells. The clock tower is not quite .so 

 hideous as the Victoria Tower, but that is all that can be 

 said of it 



THE ELEMENTS OF WEATHER KNOWLEDGE.* 



The Director of the Jleteorological Office may not be 

 able to forecast the weatlier of the British Isles 

 altogether successfully (for which, however, very sufficient 

 reasons can be given), but he has written a capital work on 

 Elementary Meteorology. The book before us is one of the 

 best proportioned and most satisfactory handbooks of 

 meteorology we have yet seen. There is scarcely any 

 matter of interest connected with the subject which is not 

 adeijuatcly treated here, while, as might be expected from 

 Mr. Scott's position, the dilFerent departments are brought 

 close up to date, a most important matter in such a subject 

 as meteorology, undergoing constant change in details, 

 though its general principles remain little changed from 

 century to century. Nay, as Mr. Scott points out, the 

 Book of Job, probably one of the most ancient of the 

 ■works included in that little library of books called the 

 Bible, " contains some sound meteorological knowledge," 

 rather elementary, but " as true now as it was some three 

 thousand years ago.' And if our knowledge is in part so 

 old, so also is our ignorance. Mr. Scott is obliged to admit 

 in the case of the British Isles what was said of old in 

 Palestine, " the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we 

 cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth " — or, as 

 he puts it, " Situated as the British Isles are with an ocean 

 to the westward, we in London can never get many hours' 

 notice of a change." On the other hand, at the Central 

 OflBce in the United States, reports can be collected from 

 an extensive area, and the changes, as they come on, can 

 be watched at head-quarters to an extent which is quite 

 impossible at this side of the Atlantic. 



In the present work, therefore, the study of weather is 

 only dealt with in a passing way, while the study of 

 climate claims much closer attention and receives much 

 fuller treatment. Cosmical meteorology is not considered 

 at all, except in an appendix on the imagined influence of 

 sun-spots on the weather. It is painful to note, by the 

 ■way, that in dealing with this matter our author is by no 

 means so enthusiastic as the advocates of sun-spottery 

 would desire — nay, if it were not incredible that anyone 

 could poke fun at that dignified body, it would almost 

 seem as if that were what Mr. Scott meant in the following 

 passage : — 



" Inasmnch as various investipitions arrive at contradictory 

 ooDClnsions as to the nature of the connection between ' weather 

 phenomena, as well as events depending on thoni,' and those of 

 snn-spot frequency ; one class holding that sun-spot frequency ac- 

 oompanios a high, while the other asserts that it is associated with 

 alow temperature, it can scarcely be said that the close connection 

 between solar and terrestrial phenomena is capable of accurate 

 demonstration." 



Could anything much less encouraging be said even of 

 the follies of astro meteorology 1 to which sun-spottery 

 (whose most enthusiastic ad\ocates are not so foolish as 

 they seem) in reality gave birth. 



We would especially recommend to our readers' attention 

 the chapters on Temperature (IIL), on Radiation (IV.), 



• "Elementary Meteorology." By Robert II. Scott, author of 

 " Weather Charts and Storm Warnings." With numerous illustra- 

 tions. (Kegan Paul & Co., London.) 



Dew, Fog, Mist, and Cloud (VII.), Rain, Snow, and Hail 

 (VIII.), and Electrical Phenomena (X.), in Part I. ; and 

 the whole of Part II., which deals with the Distribution of 

 Temperature and Pressure, the Prevailing \\'ind.s. Ocean 

 Currents and Sea Temperature, the Distribution of Rain, 

 Climate, Weather, and Storms. 



The maps at the end of the book are excellent, and, 

 though necessarily on rather a small scale, the scale suits 

 the character and purpose of the treatise. These maps 

 include the isothermal lines for January, July, and the 

 whole year ; tlie dillerence between the January and July 

 temperatures and the mean temperatures for the whole 

 world, Maps IV. and V. ; the mean atmospheric pressure 

 and prevailing winds for January and July, Maps \ I. and 

 VII. ; the current-chart of the globe for the year (reduced 

 from Maury), Map. VIII. ; isothermal lines for aea-surface 

 temperature (mean) in February and August, Maps IX. 

 and X. ; and, lastly, lines showing regions of equal annual' 

 range of temperature. 



The following points have suggested themselves to us in 

 the reading of this excellent little book (it is considerably- 

 larger, by the way, than nio.st of the volumes of the Inter- 

 national Series, though no higher in price). At page 41,^ 

 the word " homonymous " seems an undesirable addition to 

 our already over-long list of sesquipedal words ; but these 

 words should at least be correct, and we approve of our 

 author's suggestion that the incorrect " atmometry " should 

 be replaced by the correct form '• atmidometry " (the 

 blunder of the astronomical "chromosphere" for "chromato- 

 sphere," already a standing jest, needs to be matched, 

 however, by a meteorological blunder). The explanation 

 of verrjlas is rather misleading, as the moisture of 

 damp air deposited in solid form produces snow crystals, 

 not true glass-ice, which often so closely resembles 

 glass in transparency as to be invisible from the 

 usual height of the eye above the ground, as some 

 (including the present writer) have found to their cost, 

 whereas a deposit of ice crystals is very obvious to the 

 sight. No reference is made to the determination of higher 

 cloud levels. Our author gives a very commonplace, but 

 probably correct, explanation of the hailstones as large as 

 elephants, reported from India, as probably due to the 

 collection of liailstones in large holes, and many becoming 

 there welded into a single mass. In the figure at p. 1G2, 

 the letters A, B, referred to in the text, are not shown. 

 At p. 174, Mr. Scott points out correctly the absurdity of 

 supposing that the eye can determine which way a lightning- 

 flash travels. There is a very interesting account at p. 182 

 of the " inductive action of thunderstorms " (to use rather 

 inexact verbiage). 



It occurs to us to notice, lastly, what we cannot sufll- 

 ciently admire, — the combined courage and energy which 

 enabled a single writer (we infer from the style) to- 

 review in a couple of columns in the Times all the 

 International Series thus far published — more than forty 

 volumes. A man should be a giant in intellect — or 

 else possess a perfectly microscopic modicum of modesty 

 (to say nothing of conscientiousness) — to pa.ss in review, 

 and pronounce judgment on, forty-five works, including 

 treatises by such men as Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, 

 Maudsley, J. W. Draper, Bain, Quatrefages, Huxley, 

 Young, Sheldon Amos, Romanes, and Lubbock — dismissing 

 the series at the average rate of fifty words for eacL 



The arc lamps now illuminating the Oxford Union 

 Society are, in consequence of their flickering light, to be 

 replaced by 100 incandescent lamps. 



