as le oe a ® 
January 20, 1923] 
— 
the - granzola, granuschia, gragnolischia, all of 
which are derived from oy aomamea (grandine, hail), 
and each of which is favoured in various parts 
of central Italy, where oor | forms of frozen precipita- 
tion are fairly frequent in the spring period, March 
and April. ‘ 
In English we have no distinctive word, nor, as 
it is ho to show in this note, do we really need 
one, e familiar word “sleet ’’ appears to follow 
the German Schlacken in denoting a mixture of rain 
and snow in the British Isles; but in the United 
States ‘‘slect ’’ is officially reserved for true frozen rain, 
that is to say, drops which congeal into clear ice 
herules by passing through a cold surface stratum 
of air. This kind of hail, as one would categorise it 
in England, is a common winter phenomenon in the 
eastern States, because there the contrasts of tempera- 
ture between the equatorial and polar currents in 
cyclones, though not more frequent than in England, 
are more violent, so that a warm rain more often than 
here alights on a frozen soil. But, on the other hand, 
various forms of wintry hail falling in showers in 
moderately cold polar currents during the winter and 
spring are distinctly common in England, and these 
ow almost every gradation from the little soft white 
opaque pellets, which are really hardened snowflakes 
and might be called “‘ snow-hail,’’ to something very 







































OLUME I. of the Transactions of the International 
Astronomical Union, giving an account of the 
first general assembly held at Rome, May last, is edited 
by Prof. A. Fowler (London: Imperial College Book- 
stall, Prince Consort Road, S.W.7; price 15s.). It is 
an indispensable book of reference for astronomical 
workers, which contains the agenda of the thirty-two 
commissions, including important proposals for the 
co-ordination of methods of observing and mapping 
out of the fields of work to avoid useless duplication. 
The spectroscopic data are slag pe ull: the 
Draper spectral notation has n slightly modified 
and considerably extended in the light of increased 
knowledge. The letter Q is assigned to nove, and 
the well-known stages in the development of the nova 
spectrum are indicated by suffixes. There is also a 
list of wave-lengths of iron, neon, and other lines 
‘suggested as standards. 
me of the decisions may be given briefly. The 
Latin names of the constellations are to be used, 
and a set of 3-letter abbreviations of these names 
_ was agreed to. The kilometre is to be used for line- 
of-sight velocities and for dimensions of bodies, the 
astronomical unit for planetary distances, the parsec 
for stellar distances. Absolute magnitude is defined 
as the magnitude at a distance of 10 parsecs. Certain 
letters were formerly used with several different 
meanings ; they are now distinguished thus: [A] =a 
line in the spectrum, A or 4 (ital.) =Argon, A=a 
stellar spec type. 
3 he lecture delivered by Prof. F. Haber on the 
award of the Nobel Prize at Stockholm on 
og I, 1920, is printed in Die Naturwissenschaften 
; December 8. Prof. Haber dealt first with the 
_ work done on the synthesis of ammonia before his 
first research in 1905. Practically nothing of im- 
portance had come to light, and the very small yields 
at ordinary pressures did not hold out much promise 
_ of technical application. 
The early experiments of Haber, like most of those 
NO. 2777, VOL. 111] 
NATURE 
1O[ 

like the real hail more ically associated with 
summer thunderstorms. It is clear that ambiguity 
would arise if ‘sleet ’’ were used for any of these 
forms in this country. In fact, the British official 
practice of comprising all forms of frozen precipita- 
tion other than snow under the term “ hail’”’ is 
philosophically sound, and no regret need really be 
felt that we have no word to correspond to grésil, 
grdupel, or gragnola. It would appear that the only 
real solution of this terminological difficulty is to 
recognise but three fundamental species of a sl 
tion; ‘‘ rain,’’ the liquid form; ‘ snow,” the frozen 
form in flakes or dust; and “ hail,’’ the frozen form 
in stones or pellets. 
Actually, the different varieties of hail scarcel 
differ more from one another than do the dit- 
ferent varieties of snow, or even of rain, and no 
difficulty need be felt on that score. Doubtful forms, 
such as the “ snow-hail’’ referred to above, had best 
be entered in a register to both species; and in the 
case of the mixture of rain and snow, which in this 
country we call “sleet,” this is habitually done. 
The double-entry plan has the advantage of tending 
to eliminate the effect of personal bias on the part 
of an observer, a factor which probably affects 
quite seriously the comparability of snow-frequency 
statistics in different localities. L, Gr We B 
The International Astronomical Union. 
The Conn. des Temps list of Fundamental Stars 
and the Carte du Ciel list of intermediary stars were 
adopted as standards, and 1925-0 is to be used as the 
standard equinox up to 1940. M. Andoyer undertook 
to reduce the latest positions of the fundamental 
stars to this equinox. 
It was recommended that the short-period variations 
in solar radiation, announced by Abbot, should be 
studied as widely as possible, and their correlation 
with weather changes investigated. 
Photometric work on minor planets was recom- 
mended. In stellar-parallax work it was recommended 
that plates of each field should be repeated after 10 
years, to obtain the proper motions of the comparison 
stars. 
A central bureau for double-star work was recom- 
mended, and various decisions for securing uniformity 
of method were passed. A variable star bureau or 
centre in each country is desirable (one has been 
established at Lyons). The Cracow Observatory 
undertakes the preparation of ephemerides of Algol 
stars. 
The commission on calendar reform recommended 
(1) a perpetual calendar, with a 52-week year and one 
or two days outside week and month, @) the lengths 
of the months in each quarter should be 30, 30, 
31 days, and (3) that the year should begin at the 
winter solstice. 
The volume is thus a noteworthy record of important 
decisions, embracing nearly every branch of astronomy. 
The Haber Process. 
which have served as the foundations of great in- 
dustrial undertakings, were made with a purely 
scientific object, and with no technical applications 
in view. The results obtained, however, soon made 
it clear that the basis of an important technical pro- 
cess could be found in ammonia synthesis, and further 
work was undertaken with this end in sight. 
In 1908 the Badische Gesellschaft placed at Haber’s 
disposal all the means requisite for the further pro- 
gress of the research on the synthesis of nitric oxide 
