578 



NATURE 



[October 15, 1903 



An excessive downpour of rain is reported from New 

 York on October 8-g, amounting- to more than ten inches 

 in thirty hours. This is said to be the greatest fall at that 

 place since the Weather Bureau was established there, in 

 1867, and has caused great damage to property. The streets 

 resembled rivers, and in some parts the water rose waist- 

 deep. The train service between New York and Phila- 

 delphia was temporarily suspended ; the Delaware 

 River rose to the highest level ever known, and several 

 bridges have collapsed. Since 1889, the U.S. Weather 

 Bureau has published tables of excessive rainfall from self- 

 recording gauges. We have referred to these, and find 

 that, although such excessive falls do occur from time to 

 time, they are of rare occurrence. During the years 1889- 

 1896, for instance, the highest record was 986 inches in 

 twenty-four hours, at Jacksonsville (Florida), in September, 

 1894. 



We have received the report of the director of the 

 Philippine Weather Bureau, 1902, part iii., contain- 

 ing very clearly printed hourly observations of atmo- 

 spheric phenomena at the Manila Central Observatory, with 

 hourly and monthly means. The extreme daily values of 

 each of the elements are brought together in a separate 

 table. This is one of the few observatories at which observ- 

 ations of ozone are taken. Parts iv. and v. still remain to 

 be published, and will contain magnetic observations and 

 the results for the secondary stations of the Archipelago. 

 The complete series will form a valuable contribution to 

 the climatology of the Far East. 



W'e have received the report of the Hong Kong Observ- 

 atory for the year 1902, containing hourly readings of the 

 different meteorological elements, together with some 

 magnetic and astronomical observations. The weather 

 forecasts issued during the year have been very satis- 

 factory ; 56 per cent, were completely successful, and 35 per 

 cent, partially successful. According to the practice usually 

 followed in dealing with the results, 91 per cent, of the 

 forecasts may be therefore considered as more or less 

 successful. The collection of observations at sea for the 

 construction of trustworthy monthly pilot charts has been 

 vigorously continued; the number of days' observations 

 obtained during the year was 9073, while the total number 

 of sets now collected amounts to nearly 261,000. The 

 area dealt with lies between 9° S. and 45° N. latitude, and 

 between the longitude of Singapore and 180° east. 



M. K. Olszewski describes in the Cracow Bulletin a 

 new apparatus for the liquefaction of hydrogen, differing 

 from his previous models in having both regenerators and 

 the intermediate cooler for receiving liquid air all placed 

 in a common vacuum chamber. The apparatus is said to 

 work faultlessly. 



The formation of " Liesegang's rings " by the precipita- 

 tion of silver chromate in gelatin forms the subject of a 

 paper by Messrs. H. W'. Morse and G. W. Pierce in the 

 Proceedings of the American Academy. The formation of 

 the precipitate in rings is clearly a case of supersaturation, 

 and the authors now obtain a definite constant value for 

 the product of the concentrations of the silver and chromate 

 ions in order that supersaturation may take place. 



Several papers on the so-called N rays discovered by 

 M. Blondlot are printed in the Journal de Physique for 

 August. M. Blondlot shows that these rays are of common 

 occurrence, being emitted by an Auer lamp and an in- 

 candescent silver lamina, and being present in sunlight. 

 M. G. Sagnac describes determinations of the wave-length 

 of these rays by means of their diffraction. It appears 

 NO. 1772, VOL. 68] 



that the rays in question are about two octaves below th> 

 Rubens infra-red rays, and intermediate between these an 1 

 the Hertzian radiations of Lampa. Their wave-length i- 

 about 02 of a millimetre. 



Several writers have raised difficulties in connection wiili 

 Boltzmann's minimum theorem in the kinetic theory of 

 gases on the ground of the reversibility of the motions ot 

 the individual gas-molecules. Some remarks on this point 

 are contributed by Dr. A. Pannekoek to the Proceedinj^^ 

 of the Amsterdam Academy. For the case considered the 

 author finds that when in a purely mechanical reversibh 

 process, which is repeated a number of times, a small 

 variation in the initial data causes a large variation in thf 

 final state, the total process assumes the properties of an 

 irreversible process. 



Some observations made in the Arosa Valley on atmo- 

 spheric electricity at high altitudes are described by Mr. 

 W. Saake in the Physikalische Zeitschrift, 23. The most 

 noteworthy results were the observation of a negative fall 

 of potential on certain clear and cloudless winter days, the 

 facts that the coefficient of electric dispersion of electricity 

 was increased by the Fohn and that under normal con- 

 ditions the coefficient of negative dispersion attained a 

 maximum at about 8 a.m. and between 4 and 5 p.m., and 

 the large capacity of the atmosphere for radio-active eman- 

 ation, which was about three times as great as in Wolfen- 

 biittel. 



The Hopkins-Stanford Expedition to the Galapagos 

 Islands in 1898-99 turns out to have been remarkably 

 successful in the matter of new species of marine fishes 

 from that area. According to a paper by Messrs. Heller 

 and Snodgrass, published in the Proceedings of the 

 Washington Academy (vol. v. pp. 189-229), the number of 

 novelties is twenty-three, of which no less than five are 

 regarded as indicating new generic types. Most of the 

 species are figured in the plates accompanying the memoir, 

 and we may particularly direct attention to the excellent 

 effect produced by the sepia-like printing of plates 8 and 9. 



In the October issue of Bird Notes and News, attention 

 is directed to the power now possessed by county councils 

 of extending protection during winter to birds of any kind, 

 and the value of this to many resident species. The intro- 

 duction last July into Parliament of a Bill to abolish the 

 pole-trap is likewise the subject of a commendatory note. 

 A letter from Colonel Irby, which appeared in the Saturday 

 Review of July 18, on the subject of taking rare birds and 

 their eggs for so-called scientific purposes is reproduced. 

 In this communication the writer directs attention to the 

 shooting of a pair of pratincoles last spring near Romney, 

 and likewise to the taking of a nest of the blue-headed 

 wagtail near Winchelsea. 



The Century Magazine for October contains an account 

 by Mr. L. O. Howard of the recent investigations which 

 have served to connect the propagation of yellow fever with 

 a certain species of mosquito {Culex aeniatus). A map 

 (after Mr. Theobald) is given of the distribution of this 

 mosquito, which coincides exactly with that of yellow fever. 

 To protect oneself from the malaria mosquito, it is only 

 necessary to use gauze curtains at night ; the yellow fever 

 mosquito, on the other hand, is a diurnal species, so that 

 escape from its stab is a matter of much greater difficulty. 

 In a well-illustrated article in the same journal entitled 

 " The Wild Bird by a New Approach," Mr. F. H. Herrick 

 comments on the revival of interest in nature generally, 

 and natural history in particular, which has taken place of 

 late years in the United States. Birds have been specially 



