June 29, 1882] 



NA TURE 



*97 



feet, the culminating point of the whole province being 

 apparently the Gu-Koh peak (6,400 feet) in the Parment 

 district. 



A survey of the Ab-washur water-parting, between 

 Bashkurd and Hormuz Strait, considerably reduced the 

 supposed eastward extension of the Minab basin, and 

 showed conclusively that it was in no way connected 

 with the Bampur River, which many geographers have 

 hitherto made to discharge through the Minab into the 

 Persian Gulf. Mr. Floyer now argues with much force 

 that the true outlet of the Bampur is the Sadi'ch (Sadaich), 

 which reaches the coast in 5S 40' E., in the Gulf of 

 Oman, and which seems to flow from the Shahri country, 

 through the Shimsani Pass, in the Band-i-Marz range. 

 He found that where he crossed the Haliri in 2S N., 

 57 40' E., it was already a considerable stream, 90 feet 

 broad, and 4$ feet deep. The furthest head-waters of 

 this important river, of which next to nothing was pre- 

 viously known, are in the Jemal Bariz range, whence it 

 flows in a south-easterly direction to the Rudbar and 

 Shahri districts. Here it would be almost necessarily 

 joined by the Bampur River, coming from the north-east, 

 and the united stream, whose further course has hitherto 

 remained an unsolved problem, would appear to flow 

 thence through the Shimsani Pass southwards to the 

 Sadich. Hence the Sadich would seem to be the lower 

 course of the Haliri-Bampur, thus draining nearly the 

 whole of the region in south-east Persia, between 57° — 

 61° E., and 25° 30' — 29 N. But this interesting point 

 cannot, of course, be finally determined without a more 

 thorough exploration of the Rudbar and Shahri districts 

 between Bampur and the Ab-washur water-parting. 



The work, whose chief fault is its misguiding title, is 

 written in a pleasant, vivacious style, and contains much 

 useful information touching the ethnical, social, and 

 linguistic relations of the Baluchi tribes on the Perso- 

 Mekran frontier. A. H. Keane 



A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied 

 Ufathematics ; containing' Propositions, Formula, and 

 Methods of Analysis, with Abridged Demonstrations. 

 By G. S. Carr, B.A. Vol. i., Section ix. (London : 

 C. F. Hodgson and Son, 1S82.) 

 In our notices of the previous sections we have suffi- 

 ciently indicated the scope of this work. The present 

 section is devoted to the integral calculus, and takes up 

 its numbered articles at 1900, and closes at 2997 : the 

 pagination being pp. 313-440 of part ii. of vol. 1. The 

 same honest work, tor which we have already commended 

 the author, is conspicuous here, and the utility of having 

 such a handy manual on the calculus is evident. It would 

 be impossible to furnish here the results of a thorough 

 examination of the text ; the preparation for such a task 

 would take up a very long time ; but we would recom- 

 mend a testing of the several parts to which a reader 

 may have occasion frequently to refer, so that the 

 book might be consulted with full confidence. We are 

 glad to find that the likelihood of the occurrence of such 

 errors as we mentioned in our notice of the first part, is 

 reduced to a minimum by the very careful method of 

 revision now adopted by Mr. Carr. We have much 

 pleasure in commending this new section to the notice of 

 our mathematical readers. 



A Collection of Examples and Problems on Conies and 

 some of the Higher Plane Curves. By Ralph A. 

 Roberts, M.A. (Dublin : Hodges, Figgis, and Co., 

 1882.) 



These Examples will serve as an excellent compendium 

 of results to a student who is working through Dr. 

 Salmon's Treatises on Conic Sections and on the Higher 

 Plane Curves. In fact it was whilst the author was read- 

 ing the above-named works that he conceived these useful 

 illustrative exercises. Mr. Roberts shows himself to be 



an apt mathematician, and to have a very extensive ac- 

 quaintance with the classes of curves considered. These 

 are mostly curves of the second, third, and fourth orders. 

 The Problems have been, in general, suggested by Dr. 

 Salmon's treatises and by Dr. Casey's Memoir on Bicir- 

 cular Quartics : Mr. Roberts also acknowledges his in- 

 debtedness to Darboux's Sur une classe remarquable de 

 courbes et de surfaces alge'briques. Occasional explana- 

 tory matter is thrown in here and there, and concise 

 proofs are given in several cases. As the text-books 

 contain a limited number of examples, this work will be 

 a useful supplement to them. We like almost everything 

 about the book except the paper, and that appears to us 

 to be of a verv inferior character. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications . 

 [The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even 

 of communications containing interesting and novel facts. ] 



The Recent Unseasonable Weather 



Ix view of the recent unusually cold weather in England and 

 Scotland, which has been so well described and proximately 

 explained in la-t week's Nature, the following paragraph, 

 extracted from the Standard of June 15, appears to me highly 

 . especially as regards one of die probable causes foi 

 the "unwonted high pressures" on the northern side of the 

 depression which is accused of being the immediate source of 

 these unseaonable conditions : — 



"News from Iceland states that the Spitzbergen floe-ice 

 surrounds the north and east coast, entirely preventing naviga- 

 tion. A Norwegian steamer endeavouring to reach Bernfiord, 

 on the south-east coast, last week, was caught in the ice and had 

 to put back. Owing to the presence of these immense ice-fields 

 vegetation lias made no progress, causing a great loss of hordes 

 and sheep through starvation. Epidemics of measles and small- 

 pox have been introduced into the island from Europe, and are 

 making exten-ive ravages among the population ; the former is 

 especially prevalent in Kejkjavik." 



Now i; has been ascertained with some con-iderahle degree of 

 certainty by Messrs. Blanford and Eliot, the Government meteoro- 

 logists in India, that a heavy winter snowfall over the North- 

 west Himalaya exercises a marked and prolonged influence in 

 lowering the temperature and elevating the atmospheric pressure 

 and thereby directly affecting the winds and weather, over the 

 whole of Northern India, and parts of Central India ; and in- 

 directly to a much greater distance. Turning to Europe, we find 

 the distance from Rejkjavik, on the west coast of Iceland to 

 London is abuut 1 140 miles, or about the same as from Lahore 

 to Calcutta (icSo miles), while from Cape Horn on the east 

 coast of Icehnd to Edinburgh the distance is only 750 miles, 

 or about the same as from Calcutta to Agra. To 

 familiar wiih Indian weather charts or the meteorology of that 

 country, it would appear absurd not to attempt to correlate the 

 meteorological conditions at places so comparatively near a^ the 

 above-mentioned towns ; and in fact experience has shown that 

 the meteorology of the Punjab is not only intimately connected 

 with that of Lower Bengal, but also with that of Southern India. 

 If therefore it has been found that an abnormally heavy snow- 

 fall in the N rth-YVest Himalaya, such as that which charac- 

 terised the winters of 1876-77 and 1877-78, exercised a marked 

 effect on the meteorology of Northern India, which was felt at 

 places situated IOOO miles or more from the seat of action, nay 

 it not be reasonably inferred that the presence of a large mass of 

 ice or snow in the Icelandic area would be likely to give rise to 

 similar atmospheric conditions over these islands ? It seems 

 therefore not at all improbable, that the abnormal weather 

 during the past few weeks may be directly due in some consider- 

 able measure to the coincident appearance of large masses of 

 ice off the eastern coasts of Iceland, like those which, from the 

 account in the Standard, appear to be at present prevailing to an 

 unusual extent. 



In the case of India an abnormally heavy fall of snow in the 



