294 



NATURE 



[January 25, 1894 



year professor of the Catholic University at Louvain, 

 which professorship he continued to fill for more than 

 half a century. Van Beneden belonged to a generation 

 of zoologists that connected Cuvier with the present 

 age, and followed so far in this great master's steps, that 

 they worked at almost all the branches of the animal 

 kingdom. If we were to give a summary of the very ex- 

 tensive writings of van Beneden we should begin with his 

 memoirs on apes, seals, whales, and so through the 

 various classes, with perhaps the exception of the birds 

 and reptiles, to the gregarines. Circumstances made 

 him devote a great deal of attention to the groups of 

 parasitic worms and Annelides. Most of his papers on 

 these forms were communicated to the Brussels Academy 

 of Sciences or to the Paris Academy ; the latter we find 

 reported on by Ouatrefages. He took a leading part in 

 the, at one time, exciting controversy about the "alter- 

 nation of generations," with the elder Sars, D'Udekem, 

 and others. 



Among the more important works of Beneden may be 

 mentioned " The Natural History of the Fresh-water 

 Polyzoa," in collaboration with Du Mortier, published 

 in 1850, which obtained the Grand Prize of the Paris 

 Academy ; the " Zoologie Medicale," in 1859, of which 

 Paul Gervais was joint author ; the " Recherches sur la 

 Faune Littorale de Belgique " (Polypes), in 1866! In 

 connection with this work it may be mentioned that 

 Beneden's artistic powers were quite remarkable, and 

 that many of his memoirs owe a great deal to his excel- 

 lent illustrations. A good correspondent, he kept him- 

 self acquainted with the work of most of his contem- 

 poraries, and he was the writer of many of the short 

 biographical sketches referring to zoologists that ap- 

 peared from year to year in the Reports of the Brussels 

 Academy. Some of our readers may remember what an 

 active part he took in the Liverpool (1870) meeting of 

 the British Association ; Rolleston was president of the 

 biological section, and gave a morning to the discus- 

 sion of the subject of " commensalism," which at that 

 time Beneden's mind was occupied with, and about 

 which he afterwards (1875) published a volume in the 

 " Bibliotheque Scientifique Internationale," that has been 

 translated into German and English. Peradventure 

 some too may remember how delighted Beneden, with 

 Strieker, Dohrn, and some of the other " foreigners " 

 present at that meeting were, to find that a little nucleus 

 of the great body combined to make the " Association 

 Sunday" as little sad as possible by the practice of a 

 proper commensalism. Full of honour after a long 

 life well and usefully spent, Beneden had the additional 

 reward of seeing his son Edward take a high rank in the 

 modern biological school, in this resembling his great 

 contemporary Henri Milne Edwards. Beneden was a 

 member of very many of the Academies and Societies of 

 Europe, and was an honorary LL.D. of the University 

 of Edinburgh. He died at Louvain on January 8, 1894. 



THE GREAT GALE OF NOVEMBER 16-20. 



TTHE past autumn and early winter were especially 

 ■*■ characterised by a mild and humid atmosphere, 

 due to the very marked prevalence of south-westerly 

 winds which have blown with great persistence from the 

 Atlantic. These conditions are without doubt intimately 

 associated with the frequency with which gales have 

 occurred. 



The violent storm which was experienced over the 

 entire area of the United Kingdom, as well as over the 

 sea and the parts of the continent adjacent to our islands, 

 from November 16 to 20, was more severe than the other 

 gales which have recently occurred, and it is necessary 

 NO. 1265, VOL. 4q] 



to refer back many years before a storm so violent 

 and so destructive can be found to have traversed the 

 country. 



Prior to the advent o^f the storm an anticyclonic area, 

 with fairly high barometer readings, was situated over 

 our islands, and north-easterly winds were prevalent. 

 On November 14 and 15 a small cyclonic disturbance 

 travelled over the south-western portion of the kingdom, 

 and caused a general giving way in the area of high 

 barometer readings, while the large anticyclone over 

 Europe also materially decreased in its energy. At this 

 time a large cyclonic disturbance was out in the Atlantic, 

 and was rapidly approaching our western coasts ; the first 

 intimation of a renewal of bad weather was shown by a 

 fresh fall of the barometer which set in at Valencia at 

 4 p.m. 15th, and an hour or so later the wind was 

 freshening from the south-east. 



On November 16 the conditions had so far changed 

 that at eight o'clock in the morning the weather chart 

 prepared by the Meteorological Office gave unmistakable 

 indications of an important disturbance at no great dis- 

 tance from the Irish coast, and the Official Weather 

 Report has the following remark : — " A large depression 

 is approaching our western coasts from the south-west- 

 ward, and is likely to cause rough wet weather over the 

 kingdom generally, especially in the west and north." 

 At this time a strong south-easterly wind was blowing in 

 the south-west, but the force of the wind had not attained 

 to that of a fresh gale (force eight of Beaufort notation) 

 in any part of the United Kingdom, although the 

 wind, which on the previous day had been north-easterly, 

 was now everywhere southerly. The self-recording 

 barograph at Valencia shows that the lowest barometer 

 occurred at 7 p.m. i6th, and between eight and nine in 

 the evening the wind shifted from east by south to 

 west-south-west. The central area of the storm was not 

 far distant from Valencia at this time, and during the 

 succeeding night it traversed Ireland in a direction from 

 south-west to north-east, the whole storm-system progress- 

 ing at the rate of of about twenty-five geographical miles 

 an hour. By the morning of November 17 the heart of 

 the storm had reached the west of Scotland, the lowest 

 barometer reading reported to the Meteorological Office 

 being 28'53 iris, at Ardrossan. Strong gales had blown 

 during the preceding night in the north and west, and the 

 force of a gale was still reported at many places on our 

 coasts, while the wind had shifted to the north-westward 

 over Ireland. The weather information for the evening 

 of the 17th shows that the storm had continued its course 

 to the north-eastward, and at six o'clock the centre of the 

 disturbance was not far from Wick, where the barometer 

 was 28'57 ins. The north-westerly gale was still blowing 

 over the western portion of the kingdom, but there was a 

 decided lull in the strength of the wind in the east and 

 south-east of England. It was shortly after this time that 

 the greatest violence of the storm burst suddenly over 

 the northern part of the country, and at Deerness, in the 

 Orkneys, the wind at 6 p.m. shifted suddenly from east 

 by north to north by east. 



The subsequent tiack of the storm had a most impor- 

 tant influence on the increased violence of the wind, and 

 there seems no reason to suppose that if the disturbance 

 had continued its north-easterly track the gales ex- 

 perienced would have been at all unusual. A very 

 important change in the distribution of atmospheric 

 pressure was in progress over Western Europe, and the 

 change of track and subsequent violence is clearly to be 

 traced to these barometer changes. The anticyclone 

 over Central Russia, which had given way for the small 

 disturbance which first traversed the southern portion of 

 England on the 14th and 15th, was now reasserting itself, 

 and this formed a most effectual barrier to the further 

 north-easterly progress of the storm. In addition to 



