DECEMBER I0, 1903] 
NATURE 
135 
of Sir John Craggs a travelling scholarship of 3ool. a year 
had been bestowed for three years, and the same donor now 
gave a valuable prize annually for the best piece of research 
work carried out by a pupil of the school. The need for 
further funds was emphasised if the work of the school was 
to be successful in the future. Sir F. Lovell in a previous 
mission to the East had collected a considerable sum of 
money, 100,000 rupees being contributed by the Hon. B. 
Petit, of Bombay. 
Tne suggestions made by Sir Oliver Lodge at the Physical 
Society on November 13 (see p. 94) as to the possibility 
of dissipating fog by discharge of electricity into the air 
have attracted much attention. Experiments proving how 
a smoke-filled chamber could be cleared by the discharge 
were shown by Sir Oliver Lodge twenty years ago, and 
have been repeated by many lecturers since then, but no 
installation on a large scale was established. In reply to 
a correspondent who has asked whether street arc lamps 
could be utilised for the purpose, Sir Oliver Lodge says, 
“Your suggestion seems a practical one, and it would be 
a very good thing if something of that kind could be done. 
The difficulty is the insulation. If that could be guaranteed, 
the matter would be comparatively easy; but the potential 
is extremely high—say 100,000 volts. The quantity is next 
to nothing, and very little power is sufficient if only one 
could avoid leakage. I can tell you the kind of insulators 
that we employed for the single mast that I used in Liver- 
pool, but it is a very different thing to try to distribute it 
over a number of street lamps. It is a matter very well 
worth consideration, however, and I am glad to find that 
your attention is called to the matter. In the Liverpool 
experiment I was using a potential higher than 100,000 
volts; one could take sparks 4 inches long. But a good 
deal smaller voltage would do if there are walls or other 
earthed surfaces in the neighbourhood. For a lofty isolated 
mast the potential must be higher in order to secure adequate 
discharge.” 
Ar the meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 
November 24, Dr. H. R. Mill read an interesting paper on 
the distribution of mean and extreme annual rainfall over 
the British Isles. The results, which were exhibited by 
isohyetal lines, or lines of equal rainfall, were based on the 
means of thirty years, 1870 to 1899, and showed that a mean 
annual fall under 25 inches occurs in three places :—(1) a 
very narrow strip round the Moray Firth; (2) a triangular 
area about the Thames estuary; and (3) a large portion 
of east central England south of the Humber; and that the 
amount increases in various districts, in which altitude and 
configuration of the land form important features, to 40 
inches and upwards. Falls of more than too inches are 
found :—(1) in the lake district, around Seathwaite; (2) 
in the western Highlands; and (3) in the Snowdon district. 
The average rainfall, to the nearest half-inch, for each 
country is given as follows :—England 31-5, Wales 49-5, 
Scotland 47-0, Ireland 42-0 inches, and for the whole of the 
British Isles 39-5 inches. The extremes of annual rainfall 
were discussed by taking out the figures for the driest and 
wettest year of the thirty years’ period. The excess of rain- 
fall in 1872 was stated to be 34 per cent., and the deficiency 
in 1887 23 per cent. of the average fall for the British 
Isles as a whole. The average rainfall cver the whole 
of the British Isles for these two years was :—in 1872 53 
inches, and in 1887 30.5 inches. 
WE have received a prospectus of a new fortnightly 
meteorological bulletin, entitled La Previsione del Tempo, 
to be published in Rome on the 1st and 16th of each month, 
under the superintendence of Father A. Rodriguez. The 
NO. 1780, VOL. 69] 
| region. 
bulletin will consist of eight large octavo pages, four of 
which will be occupied by diagrams exhibiting the principal 
meteorological data, and will form the basis for the calcula- 
tion of the proposed predictions. These data will refer to 
some of the chief places in Europe (including Ireland), 
Algeria, and Tunis, for each of which forecasts are to be 
drawn. The remaining four pages will consist of text, and 
will contain a brief summary of the atmospheric changes 
of the preceding period, forecasts for the succeeding period, 
neteorological notes, and the fundamental principles of the 
system of prediction employed. The author has set himself 
a difficult, and we fear an impracticable, task, but as he 
apparently proposes to proceed upon strictly scientific lines, 
we shall be interested to learn what amount of success he 
may obtain. For this country at least, the changes from 
one type of weather to another appear to be too sudden to 
allow of a tolerably safe forecast for more than a day or 
two in advance, nor has more been yet attempted by any of 
the European central meteorological offices. The author, 
however, appears to be sanguine of obtaining a success of 
65 to 75 per cent. 
In the Meteorological Office pilot chart for December 
the attention of mariners is directed, in a lengthy descrip- 
tion of the Aurora Borealis, to the question of more careful 
and systematic observations of the various phases of aurore. 
They are asked to supply details as to the following points, 
to which scientific inquiry might be directed :—The angle 
which the apex of the arch makes with the horizon; the 
orientation of the arch or arches; the lateral motion of the 
streamers, whether from right to left or left to right; 
does the individual streamer move sideways, or do fresh 
streamers arise to one side of the former? As a rule, 
streamers are parallel to the dipping needle—it should be 
noted if any streamers are curved. ‘Can stars be seen 
immediately under the base of streamers? It should be 
noticed if the arches always move from north (magnetic) 
to south, and, if so, whether it is by a motion southward 
of the individual streamers or by new streamers appearing 
to the south of the old ones; the formation of coronz by 
streamers should be carefully watched and noted, and special 
notice should be taken of the behaviour of the compass 
when an aurora presents the appearance of a luminous 
curtain. 
A SHORT account of the meeting of the Deutsche Gesell- 
schaft fiir Mechanik und Optik which took place at 
Ilmenau on August 14 and 15 is given by Prof. L. Ambronn 
in the Physikalische Zeitschrift for November 15. 
Tue Verhandlungen of the Deutschen zoologischen 
Gesellschaft for the present year contains the papers read 
at the session held in Wirzburg on June 2-4. In the 
obituary notices reference is made to the loss sustained by 
zoological science in the death of Prof. G. Radde, of Tiflis. 
The papers, which are for the most part short, cover a wide 
range of subjects, but there are none among them which 
call for special notice. 
WE have received a copy of Prof. W. B. Benham’s presi- 
dential address to the biological section of the Australian 
Association. The subject is the geographical distribution 
of earth-worms and the paleography of the Antarctic 
In the first place, from their invariable association 
with angiospermous plants, the author is of opinion that 
earth-worms form a comparatively modern group, which 
did not attain any important development before the 
Cretaceous. The ancestral type would appear to have been 
more or less nearly related to the existing Notiodrilus, of 
which the headquarters, if not the birthplace, was the 
‘© Melanesian plateau.’’ New Zealand and the neighbour- 
