May 23, 1 901] 



NATURE 



81 



tion of the origin of the conspicuous barometric changes 

 which are characteristic of middle latitudes. 



The general scheme of Prof. Bigelow's contribution is 

 to identify and describe the actual motion of the air. 

 There is no doubt that the identification of the stream 

 lines in the atmosphere is a most important step towards 

 a dynamical theory of atmospheric phenomena. When 

 these relations, which are, of course, strictly kinematical, 

 have been satisfactorily established by observation and 

 experiment, the transition to the dynamical explanation 

 will be more practicable than any attempt to calculate 

 the state of motion of the air a priori from assumed 

 dynamical causes and conditions. The procedure from 

 the observation and accurate identification of the actual 

 motion, even if it be complicated, to the forces which 

 produce it has for precedent the solution of the problem 

 of planetary motion, and it is most interesting to see a 

 similar process shaping itself in the less amenable de- 

 partment of winds and clouds. 



Further applications of the observations are contained 

 in chapters xii. to xiv., wherein the observations of 

 cumulus and nimbus clouds, incorporated with kite and 

 balloon observations, are used to throw light on the 

 successive stages of change which take place in air as it 

 rises from the surface ; and the reductions necessary for 

 pressure and temperature to enable an observer, with the 

 assistance of cloud observations, to draw up a weather 

 map for the 3500 foot level or the 10,000 foot level are 

 discussed, while in chapter xiv. the heat necessary to con- 

 vert an " adiabatic atmosphere" into the atmosphere in 

 its existing state is computed. 



The latter part of the book is technical and based 

 upon mathematical reasoning, and the style is by no 

 means easy. The earlier part is observational, except 

 that of course formulns are employed for reduction of the 

 direction and magnitude of the motion of the clouds from 

 the observed data. The whole work is admirably illus- 

 trated by large numbers of well executed charts upon 

 which a great deal of the discussion is based. 



It is too voluminous and important a work to criticise 

 here in detail. What is most conspicuous about it is 

 the easy coordination and correlation of so many dif- 

 ferent lines of meteorological research to form a definite 

 idea of the real course of atmospheric changes. It is 

 possible, and even probable, that the generalisations have 

 gone a little further than the extent of the observations 

 warrant at present, but the discussions show in what an 

 important manner the general study of meteorology is 

 affected by cloud measurements, and it suggests ideas 

 which are certainly capable of confirmation, or possibly 

 contradiction, by further observations. They make the 

 reader feel that observations of the height and motions of 

 the clouds are a matter, not merely of statistical interest, 

 but may lead to the solution of most important problems 

 in the physics of the atmosphere and may throw light 

 even on the obscure phenomena of terrestrial magnetism. 



The Weather Bureau is much to be congratulated 

 upon the production of a volume at once so practical and 

 so scientific amongst its official publications. 



A CANADIAN GEOLOGICAL EXPLORER. 



SOME few weeks back it was announced in N.\ture 

 that Dr. Robert Bell, F.R.S., of Ottawa had been 

 appointed director of the Geological Survey of Canada. 

 It is an mterestmg coincidence that Mr. Charles Hallock 

 has recently written and dedicated to the National 

 Geographical Society of Washington, D.C., a paper 

 dealing with his explorations. This American recogni- 

 tion of a Canadian geological explorer is so remarkable 

 that we desire to call attention to it, especially as it gives 

 an idea of the new director's life work, the extensiveness 

 of which will astonish many. Mr. Hallock, who has been 

 acquainted with Dr. Robert Bell for thirty years, is only 



NO. 1647, VOL. 64] 



able to give us a very brief review of what has been 

 accomplished by this exceptionally able and energetic 

 geologist, for the account is a short one, but we feel that 

 it is of such general interest that the following few facts 

 may be stated. 



Dr. Robert Bell commenced his career at fifteen. At 

 that age, and in the year 1857, he joined the Geological 

 .Survey under the late Sir W. E. Logan, then director, 

 and served for three years as assistant to the prmcipal 

 members of the staff. Since then he has continued in 

 the same work, but has acted as chief member of the 

 various parties. 



His surveys include portions of nearly every part of 

 Canada. Beginning in the east, they comprise the 

 " Gaspe Peninsula from Perce to Rimouski and from the 

 .St. Lawrence to the Bale des Chaleurs, and thence to 

 Quebec, the eastern townships, the Saquenay and Lake 

 St. John Region, the north shore of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, the west coast and the interior of Newfound- 

 land and parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick." 

 Dr. Bell has coasted round the eastern, or Atlantic, the 

 northern and the western coasts of the Labrador penin- 

 sula, and also round some of the islands lying off the 

 the coast. He has calculated that the peninsula is 

 560,000 English square miles, a region greater than the 

 combined areas of Great Britain and Ireland, France, 

 Germany, Belgium and Holland. 



In the summer of 1897 he visited Bafifinland and sur- 

 veyed most of its southern coast, besides exploring the 

 interior, where there are many large lakes. It is worth 

 mentioning here that only one of these lakes had before 

 been seen by a white man. This great island of Baffin- 

 land is 1000 miles in length, and is only exceeded by 

 Greenland and .-Xustralia in size. 



The large island at the north end of Hudson Bay he has 

 also explored, and has surveyed to a great extent the 

 whole of the east coast of the Bay, from the Straits to the 

 head of James Bay, also parts of the west coast of this 

 vast inland sea, which was termed by him " the Medi- 

 terranean of North America." 



Surveys have been made of the rivers flowing into 

 James Bay. The Noddaway is the largest, and its great 

 west tributary has been named the Bell River, after atten- 

 tion had been drawn to it by this eminent explorer. The 

 rivers flowing into the Hudson Bay which he has sur- 

 veyed comprise the Hayes, Steel and Hill, the great 

 Nelson, with some of its tributaries, which drains the 

 country as far as the Rocky Mountains, and the Great 

 and Little Churchill rivers. 



Coming further south we find his work comprises the 

 Ottawa River from source to mouth, with its great tribu- 

 tary the Gatineau, and various neighbouring streams, the 

 Montreal River and country north and south of it, and 

 the country north of Lake Huron, including a great num- 

 ber of rivers and the mining district of Sudbury. The 

 lake-peninsula of Ontario has been geologically examined 

 by him, while he has surveyed the rivers on the north 

 side of Lake Ontario, the Nipigon Lake, which is the 

 most northern of the great lakes of the St. Lawrence, and 

 also the rivers and their lakes and the country north of 

 this to the Albany. 



To the west of Lake Superior the wooded country to 

 the prairies has been explored, and the international 

 boundary line from this lake to the Lake of the Woods 

 geologically examined by him. In 1881 he published a 

 map of this last-named lake, the first ever made. 



Still further west a track-survey of most of the shores 

 of Lake Winnipeg was completed. Lake Manitoba was 

 explored, and, further west still, the Assinniboine, Swan 

 and Qu'Appelle Rivers and extensive portions of the 

 North and South Saskatchewan River. A good track- 

 survey has, further, been made of Lac la Biche and its 

 river as far as the .\thabasca River, and also of that river 

 itself as far north as the Athabasca Lake. 



