52 



NATURE 



[July 13, ign 



chapters, and the last of them carries the story to the 

 present da) from the re-establishment of the issue of fore- 

 casts in 1879 by the Meteorological Council, which at that 

 time was composed of Prof. Henry Smith, Warren do la 

 Rue, Captain Evans, Francis Galton, Prof. G. G. Stokes, 

 and Sir R. Strachey. After the experience of thirty-two 

 years, it is time that a new chapter was begun in which 

 the question of the distribution of forecasts should receive 

 its share of attention. 



With an extraordinary regularity, all the aviators in 

 the European Circuit — with the exception of Valentine, 

 who came to earth at Brooklands — recrossed the Channel 

 in the last stage but one from Hendon to Calais on July 6. 

 The following day Paris was reached by six of the com- 

 petitors, the remaining three, Tabuteau, Viklrines, and 

 Barra, coming in at intervals during July 8, owing to 

 various minor mishaps en route. The winner was Naval- 

 Lieutenant Andre Conneau (who flew under the pseu- 

 donym of " Beaumont "), who completed the circuit in 

 58h. 36m. on a Bleriot monoplane fitted with a 50 horse- 

 power " Gnome " motor and a " Normale " propeller. 

 His time works out at an average of more than 17 miles 

 an hour. Those who obtained the next six places were 

 Garros (Bleriot), 62I-1. iSm. ; Vidart (Deperdussin), 

 73I-1. 32m. ; Vedrines (Morane), 86h. 34m. ; Gibert (R.E.P.), 

 8oh. 42m. ; Kimmerling (Sommer), 93b. 10m. ; and Renaux 

 (Farman biplane), noh. 44m. Barra (M. Farman biplane) 

 and Tabuteau (Bristol biplane) also finished. Renaux 

 deserves a special word of praise, as he carried a 

 passenger, M. Senoncques, throughout the race. 



A spell of ideal summer weather has occurred recently 

 over England, where in places the thermometer in the 

 shade has risen to between 85 and 90°. For the country 

 generally it is unfortunate that the high temperature was 

 preceded by dry weather, and rains are now greatly 

 needed. At Greenwich the thermometer in the shade 

 exceeded 80° on the four days from July 5 to July S, and 

 on July 6, 7, and S it exceeded 86°, the highest tempera- 

 ture being 88°, on July S. In the sun's rays the thermo- 

 meter was 144 both on July 7 and 9. The shade tempera- 

 ture has not risen so high at Greenwich since the summer 

 of 1906, when, it will be remembered, a reading of 94-3° 

 was recorded on August 31, and on the three following 

 days the readings were respectively 91-9°, 93-5°, and 91-0°, 

 the last three observations being a record for September. 

 The temperatures recently experienced are not excessive for 

 July ; in 1900, on July ib, the reading was 94-0° at 

 Greenwich; in 1896, on July 14, 91.1°; in 18S7, on July 4, 

 92-2°; in 1885, on July 26, 90-2°; and in 1881, on July 15, 

 07- 1 °, the latter being the highest temperature recorded at 

 Greenwich since 1841. In the recent hot spell the thermo- 

 meter registered 90° in London at Camden Square, at 

 Epsom, and at Cullompton. A decided change of tempera- 

 ture set in during the evening of July S, and the weather 

 became much cooler, although the conditions continued 

 dry. On July 1 1 the shade reading again touched 80° in 

 parts of London, and a return of the hot weather seemed 

 probable. The temperature experienced in England falls 

 considerably short of that in the United States, where in 

 many parts the sheltered thermometer has exceeded ioo°. 

 The official records of the U.S. Weather Bureau, which 

 are not available in this country yet for a later date than 

 July 2, show a temperature of 104° on that day at 

 Marquette, Mich.; 104 at Valentine and North Platte. 

 Nebr., on June 29; and 108 at Tuma, Ariz., on June 28 

 and 26. The hot spell in England can in no way be 

 associated with the excessive heat in the United States 



no. 2 1 ;(). vol. 87] 



It is not conceivable that the heated air could traverse thi 

 whole extent of the North Atlantic. The atmospheric con- 

 ditions were at the time similar in England and America, 

 the type of weather being in both cases anticyclonic and 

 the movement of the air very sluggish. 



Sir Henry Morris, Bt., has been elected president of 

 the Royal Society of Medicine for the session 191 1— 12. 



Prof. A. E. Mettam, principal of the Royal Veterinary 

 College, Dublin, has been elected president of the Royal 

 College of Veterinary Surgeons for the ensuing year. 



Science announces that Dr. Leonhard Stejneger has 

 been appointed head curator of the department of biology 

 in the U.S. National Museum to succeed Dr. F. W. True. 



The council of the Royal Society of Arts has elected 

 Lord Sanderson, G.C.B., chairman for the year 191 1-12. 

 Lord Sanderson has been a member of the society for 

 more than thirty years. 



Dr. W. J. S. Lockver, whose recent articles upon the 

 British solar eclipse expedition have interested many 

 readers of Nature, has just returned home by the Maure- 

 tania, quite recovered from the attack of fever which he 

 had in Fiji. 



The death is reported, in his fifty-third year, of Dr. 

 Julian W. Baird, since 1886 professor of analytic and 

 organic chemistry at the Massachusetts College of 

 Pharmacy, and dean of that institution since 1895. He 

 had previously been on the scientific staff of the University 

 of Michigan and Lehigh University successively. 



Mr. R. H. Chandler, of Kearsbrook, Belvedere, Kent, 

 desires to direct attention to an exceptionally good section 

 of the plateau drift of the chalk downs, exposed in a 

 pit which has been recently opened by Mr. Benjamin 

 Harrison, of Ightham. The section is in a field behind 

 Two Chimney House, about half a mile from Terry's 

 Lodge, near Wrotham, and is described as showing 

 between 2 and 3 feet of plateau flints in a sandy 1 lay, 

 resting in pockets in the clay-with-flints. 



The Parts correspondent of The Morning Post states 

 that the inauguration of the Aerotechnic Institute, near 

 Versailles, founded by M. Deutsch de la Meurthe, who 

 has endowed it with a capital of 20,000/. and a yearly in- 

 come of 600Z., took place on July 6. The institute has 

 been provided with all the apparatus necessary for experi- 

 ments in aeronautics and aviation. Speeches were made 

 by M. Steeg, the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Liard, 

 Vice-Rector of the Paris Academy, and Prof. Appel, Dean 

 of the Faculty of Sciences in the University of Paris. 



We are informed by the Royal Society that the 

 Mackinnon studentships for the ensuing year have been 

 awarded to Mr. T. F. Winmill, of Magdalen College, 

 Oxford, for research in structural chemistry, and to Mr. 

 T. Goodey, of Rothamsted Experimental Station, for re- 

 search on protozoa in relation to the fertility of soil. The 

 Joule studentship for the ensuing period of two years has 

 been awarded to Mr. Albert Eagle, Imperial College of 

 Science, for research on the thermal relations of spectra of 

 gases and on cognate subjects. 



At the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 

 Monday, July 3, the Makdougall-Brisbane prize for the 

 biennial period 1908-9, 1909-10, was awarded to Mr. E. M. 

 Wedderburn for his series of papers bearing upon the 

 temperature distribution in fresh-water lochs, and upon 

 seiche phenomena which occur at the interface of two 

 layers of different density, whether that difference be due 



