2I 4 



NA TURE 



[/tt/y 3, 1884 



to the outbreak of the epidemic. Further to lessen 

 tlie danger, every separate household is to be requested 

 immediately to carry out scrupulously the precautions 

 and orders in reference to disinfection which are to be 

 issued by the Government. 



THE EARTH AS A GLOBE 

 Die Erde ah Weltkorper, ihre Almosphare und Hydro- 

 i/i/iii/r, Astronomische Geographic, Meteorologii und 

 Oceanographie. Von Dr. Julius Harm. Pp. 209. 

 (Prag : F. Tempsky ; Berlin: G. Freytag. 18S4.) 



IT sometimes happens that the leading words in the 

 title of a book give a very inadequate impression of 

 its contents. Such, to an English reader at least, might 

 be the case as regards the work before us. We should 

 have rather anticipated a discussion of the relation oi our 

 globe to the surrounding universe, or at any rate its 

 position as a member of the great family dependent on 

 the same central source of light and warmth. A com- 

 patriot of the writer, it is but fair to suppose, would have 

 formed a juster anticipation of what the title-page ex- 

 presses and the contents explain, that we have here a 

 description of the earth as an isolated globe. The rust 

 section sets before us its form, dimensions, density, 

 seasons, magnetism in its several aspects, and auroral 

 illumination. The following one discusses the various 

 conditions of our atmosphere with regard to temperature, 

 pressure, humidity, rainfall, winds, cyclones, and all that 

 English people express by the brief and usually not com- 

 plimentary phrase, "the weather." The third section 

 relates to the " hydrosphere," or fluid envelope, com- 

 prising its extent, colour, saltness, temperature, currents, 

 waves, and tides. This programme is carried out not 

 only with a great deal of industry, and care, and judg- 

 ment, but with a clearness and facility of expression which 

 arc not always remarkable in scientific treatises. We are 

 very favourably impressed by it as a whole, and look upon 

 it as a very valuable addition to the branch of science 

 which it undertakes to elucidate. At the same time there 

 are a few respects in which improvement might be desir- 

 able. We should have preferred, for instance, some ex- 

 planation of the comparative imperfection of the longitude- 

 measures obtained from Jupiter's satellites, as well as 

 from lunar distances ; the aeronautic details might have 

 borne expansion with advantage ; and we are a little dis- 

 appointed in the very scanty notice of atmospheric elec- 

 tricity. Of this it may indeed be said that its investigation 

 is peculiarly difficult, and that many of its modifications 

 hitherto defy explanation ; but it would have been, we 

 venture to think, a preferable course, especially as so 

 much pains have been taken with magnetism, if more 

 explicit reference had been made to an influence of so 

 powerful, yet so occult and mysterious a nature. 



We may add, though we are treading on u 

 ground, that our authors descriptions of the English 

 climate, or rather of what he considers that it ought to 

 he, with regard to dryness or the reverse, are not alto- 

 gether in agreement with our own experience. The 

 character of our month of February, as expressed in the 

 very ancient and still surviving epithet, " fill-dyke " (or 

 "fill-ditch"), or in an old rhyme of the si 

 century — 



" Foul weather is no news, hail, rain, and snow 

 An now expected and esteem'd no woe." — 



does not tally well with our authors estimate of January 

 as the most rainy of months, at least in West England ; 

 and his description of October as having a full maximum 

 of rain in East and a secondary maximum in West 

 England matches as little with the traditional remark of 

 half a century ago, that eighteen fine days always occur 

 in that month. Nor again is the April of West England, 

 as he asserts, characterised by dryness, which used to be 

 predicated of March, together with, in our grandsires' 

 remembrance, a degree of heat which caused the unyoking 

 of the weary ox during the noontide hours ; so that we 

 find in these instances the anticipation or postponement 

 of a month. Our ground however is, as we have said, 

 somewhat insecure ; and we are obliged to admit that our 

 old-world remembrances are often as far out of keeping 

 with our present experience as the theoretical deductions 

 of Dr. Harm. The October of late years has certainly 

 not maintained its reputation for fineness, and we miss 

 the regularity as well as the intensity of the equinoctial 

 gales. There is an element of uncertainty and instability 

 not only in the daily or monthly condition of the weather 

 but in its annual recurrence, at least as far as our own 

 climate is concerned ; and it has presumably a much 

 wider extent : a similar remark is not unknown in 

 Switzerland, and was confirmed as to North Italy by the 

 disappointing experience of that most accurate astro- 

 nomer. Baron Dembowski, who in his latter years had. 

 as he informed the writer of these lines, to contend with 

 an unwonted amount of unfavourable skies. Such varia- 

 tions may possibly be very slowly periodical, and, if so, 

 their recurrence might well be the subject of a careful 

 examination. The weather-lore of modern days is un- 

 doubtedly far in advance of the imperfect forecasts of a 

 century ago, and the pages before us have done well in 

 aid of its further progress ; but experience shows that the 

 science of meteorology requires to be set upon a deeper 

 and stronger foundation. The neglect of one or more 

 imperfectly appreciated factors is probably indicated by 

 the uncertainty or inconsistency of the results. One such 

 factor may readily be pointed out in electrical agency, 

 latent on every side, but awakened from time to time in 

 manifestations equally fearful and incomprehensible. How 

 to take due account of this all-pervading influence is a 

 problem for future generations. 



In closing our brief notice of this valuable work we 

 would especially allude to the especial clearness— with 

 few exceptions— of the very satisfactory as well as 

 numerous diagrams which illustrate it. So far as we have 

 observed, the faults of the book are very few : the greatest, 

 as far as English students are concerned, is one that may 

 easily be rectified, and we trust soon will be— its appear- 

 ance in a foreign tongue. 



PRACTICAL BOTANY 

 Das botanische Practicum. Von Dr. Eduard Strasburger. 

 (Jena : Gustav Fischer, 1 



THE production of a scries of important works in 

 rapid succession has pointed out Prof. Stras- 

 burger as one of the most prominent figures among 

 botanists of the present century. It will be readily 



