January 29, 1903] 



NA TURE 



303 



The Central News Agency states that the severest earth- 

 quake shock experienced at Charleston since I he disaster of 

 [886 visited this city during the night of January 23. A numher 

 of other cities in South Carolina and Georgia were similarly 

 affected. 



Reference has already been made to the proposal to form 

 a society of persons interested in electrochemistry. We are 

 glad now to announce that, as the result of the support and 

 encouragement received in response to the circulars recently 

 issued, it has been resolved to hold a general meeting of the 

 supporters of the movement to inaugurate the work of the 

 society and elect a president and council. The meeting will be 

 held at the rooms of the Faraday Club, St. Ermin's Hotel, 

 Westminster, on Wednesday, February 4, at 5 p.m. Dr. J. W. 

 Swan, F.R.S., has consented to he nominated as president, 

 and the following have accepted nomination as vice-presidents : — 

 Prof. A. Cruni-Brown, F.R.S., Sir Oliver T. Lodge, F.R.S., 

 Dr. Ludwig Mond, F.R.S., Lord Rayleigh, F.R.S., Mr. 

 Alexander Siemens and Mr. J. Swinburne. 



The twenty-first congress and exhibition of the Sanitary 

 Institute will be held at Bradford, commencing on July 7. 



As the work of the Photographic Record Association is attract- 

 ing much attention, it is of interest to note that at the meet- 

 ing of the Essex Field Club on Saturday, next, Mr. A. E. 

 Briscoe will bring forward 1 propo-il for a photographic and 

 pictorial survey of Essex, to he carried on in connection with 

 the county Museum of Natural History. Anyone wishing to 

 attend should apply to the secretaries Buckhurst Hill, Essex. 



The Eleventh International Congress of Hygiene and Demo- 

 graphy will be held in Brussels on September 2-S under the 

 patronage of ILM. the King of the Belgians. The secretary- 

 general of the congress is Prof. F. Putzeys. All inform- 

 ation and programmes can be obtained from Dr. Paul F. 

 Moline, 42 Walton Street, Chelsea, S.W., the hon. secretary 

 of the British committee. 



A Retjtkr message from St. Petersburg states that two 

 members of Baron Toll's polar expedition, Lieutenant Matissen, 

 commander of the yacht Zaria, and Lieutenant Kolchak, have 

 just arrived in S>. Petersburg with nine men of the Zaria's 

 crew, after an absence of two and a half years. 



It is announced that Dr. Jean Charcot will leave in mid-May 

 for a tour of Arctic exploration in a yacht built in cast steel, 

 and fitted up and manned at his own expense. Dr. Charcot, 

 the Daily New; Paris correspondent says, is paying great 

 attention to the laboratory fittings and apparatus. His scientific 

 staff will include a zoologist, an expert in oceanography, a 

 bacteriologist, a geologist and a botanist. Provisions for 

 eighteen months will be taken on board, though the expedition 

 is to last but six months. 



Referring to the recent death of Joseph Chavanne, the 

 Austrian geographer and meteorologist, the Athenaeum states 

 that in 1S75 he was at work at Vienna in the'Imperial Meteor- 

 ological Institute, and in the same year became editor of the 

 Austrian Mitteilungen der Geoj-aphischeu Geselhchaft. In 

 1SS4, he was commissioned by -the Brussels Geographical Insti- 

 tute to undertake a topographical survey of the district between 

 the Congo and the Kuilu-Niadi on one side, and between the 

 mouth of the Congo and the Equator station on the other side. 



We learn from La Nature that M. H. Poincare has been 

 promoted to be Commander of the Legion d'Honneur. M. 

 Mascart succeeds M. Berthelot, who has resigned, as the 

 representative of the College de France on the Superior Council 

 of Public Instruction. M. Gautier has been elected president 

 of the Bureau des Longitudes ; M. Lippmann is the new vice- 

 president and M. Radau the new secretary. 



NO. 1735, VOL. 6/] 



In addition to the sums which the German Government pro- 

 poses to allocate for the prevention of typhoid fever and the 

 collection of sickness and mortality statistics, the Imperial budget 

 for the coming year provides, we learn from the British Medical 

 Journal, a sum of 3250/. for the carrying out of experimental 

 researches directed to the further elucidation of the relation 

 between human tuberculosis and the Perhucht of cattle. The 

 problem of protective inoculation of cattle against tuberculosis 

 falls within the scope of these researches. 



On Thursday next, February 5, at 5 o'clock, Sir Clements 

 Markham will deliver the first of a course of three lectures at 

 the Royal Institution on "Arctic and Antarctic Exploration." 

 Mr. G. R. M. Murray being unable, owing to illness, to deliver 

 his course of lectures beginning on Thursday, February 26, 

 Prof. L. C. Miall will instead deliver three lectures on " Insect 

 Contrivances." The Friday evening discourse on February 6 

 will be delivered by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, on 

 "George Romney and his Works"; on February 13 by Prof. 

 S. Delepine, on " Health Dangers in Food" ; and on February 

 20 by Principal E. H. Griffiths, on the "Measurement of 

 Energy." 



At a meeting of the Vienna Academy of Sciences on Decem- 

 ber it, 1902, Dr. J. Hann presented an important paper on the 

 daily rotation of the mean wind direction and on a semi-diurnal 

 oscillation of the atmosphere on mountain peaks of two to four 

 kilometres above sea level. The author has deduced from 

 anemometrical records the wind components according to the 

 four rectangular directions and has calculated the daily range 

 by means of trigonometrical series. The differences of the 

 hourly values from the daily means obtained in this way 

 exhibit the daily variation both of direction and force, freed 

 from the prevalent wind direction and depending only on the 

 influence of the sun. He has shown in this way that the wind 

 daily rotates regularly with the sun, being easterly in the 

 morning, southerly at noon, westerly and north-westerly in the 

 afternoon and northerly at night. The author has next 

 investigated the daily changes of the wind components and has 

 exhibited their harmonic constituents. The most important 

 result is that in all four components, especially the north and 

 south, a large semi-diurnal period exists, which equals or even 

 exceeds that of the whole-day period in magnitude. The 

 regularity of the phase periods and the magnitude of the semi- 

 diurnal period make it appear probable that this regular daily 

 oscillation of the atmosphere at a height of two to four kilo- 

 metres is connected with the regular daily oscillation of the 

 barometer. '1 he daily range of mean wind force was also found 

 to follow the same rule on the mountain peaks as on the earth's 

 surface, at all directions attaining its maximum force at nearly 

 the same time, the maximum, however, occurring at nighttime 

 instead of soon after noon. 



We have received vol. vi. of the Pubblicazioni del/a Specula 

 Vaticana (Roma : Tipografia Vaticana, 1902). The first 326 

 pages are devoted to the meteorological observations made 

 during the years 1895-1901. The observations are printed in 

 full detail, the values for each hour of observation for barometer, 

 aspect of sky, direction and velocity of wind, thermometers, 

 vapour tension, relative humidity, evaporation, &c, being given. 

 Then follow another set of meteorological observations made 

 daily at 9 o'clock during the year 1901. The velocity of the 

 wind and description of the sky are next given for three observ- 

 ations every day during the year 1895. At the end of the volume 

 is given a series of plates, which illustrates graphically the vari- 

 ations of the principal meteorological elements from day to day 

 during each year. More than one hundred pages contain details 

 of the observations of meteors made during the months of 



