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NATURE 



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His contributions to general meteorology while 

 still an official of the Bureau mark him out at 

 once as belonging to the school that regards the 

 treatment of the meteorology of the globe in its 

 entirety as a condition for effective progress. 

 His charts of the distribution of pressure at the 

 level of 4000 metres are a real contribution 

 to the practical study of the general circula- 

 tion of the atmosphere. They were preceded by 

 studies of the distribution of pressure, winds and 

 clouds, which introduced the idea of "centres of 

 action." They were followed, after he had left 

 the Bureau, by the book on " La Meteorologie 

 dynamique — Histoire de nos Connaissances," 

 written in conjunction with his older friend H. H. 

 Hildebrandsson, now emeritus professor at 

 L'psala, and by the proposals now represented by 

 the Commission du Reseau Mondial for putting 

 the study of daily weather upon a "world " basis 

 by collecting daily telegrams from about thirty 

 stations distributed over the whole globe. 



In 1892 he was excused from further daily 

 attendance at the Bureau Central, and became 

 meteorologiste to the Bureau, presumably unpaid, 

 and free to work in his own way. In 1896 he 

 founded an observatory for the study of dynamical 

 meteorology at Trappes, on an open plain near 

 Paris, not far beyond Versailles. The first 

 object of the new observatory was to carry out 

 measurements of clouds in connection with the 

 scheme of the International Meteorological Com- 

 mittee for cloud observations in the years 1896-7. 

 That purpose satisfied, Teisserenc de Bort went 

 on to study the upper air by means of kites, in 

 association with his friend Rotch, the founder of 

 Blue Hill Observatory, whose untimely death 

 occurred only last year. His chapter of accidents 

 with stray kite-wires is known to some of his 

 friends, but is not published. 



The next stage was a paper in the Coniptes 

 rendus of June 15, 1908, containing an account 

 of three ascents of sounding balloons, ballons 

 sondes, according to the plan suggested by 

 Hermite and Besan9on, whereby records on self- 

 recording instruments are obtained from heights 

 up to nearly thirty kilometres in exceptional 

 cases, far beyond the limits attainable by manned 

 balloons. The three ascents of June 8, 1898, 

 had become ninety records by August, 1899, and 

 1100 records by 1906; and by that time it had 

 been clearly proved that our atmosphere is divided 

 into two shells by a surface at a height of about ten 

 kilometres, just above the level of the highest 

 clouds. In the upper shell, which Teisserenc de 

 Bort called the "stratosphere," there is practically 

 no change of temperature in a vertical column ; 

 below that is the lower shell, the "troposphere," 

 the region of vertical temperature gradient and 

 convection. Teisserenc de Bort used balloons of 

 varnished paper, which do not so easily reach 

 great heights as the expanding india-rubber bal- 

 loons introduced by Assmann ; so that the 

 honours of the identification of the stratosphere 

 are divided, but the name is Teisserenc de Bort's. 



This achievement secured, his energy and enter- 

 NO. 2254, VOL. 90] 



prise were indeed astonishing. He managed to 

 get corresponding investigations carried out 

 (probably at his own charges) over the Danish 

 seas, in the high latitudes of Sweden, over the 

 Zuyder Zee, the Mediterranean, and subsequently 

 over the intertropical region of the Atlantic 

 Ocean. For the last-mentioned investigation, in 

 the most critical period of the war between Russia 

 and Japan, he bought a Hull " fish-carrier " (after 

 selling his large house in Paris). The vessel was 

 transformed into the s.y. Otaria, which was 

 equipped and manned with the assistance of his 

 friend Rotch, and made two voyages to study the 

 currents above the trade winds. 



The thermal condition of the stratosphere being 

 more or less settled, Teisserenc de Bort next set 

 himself to determine its chemical composition by 

 capturing samples for analysis from a height of 

 twelve or fourteen kilometres, but as yet no 

 striking results have been obtained. 



Teisserenc de Bort was always a delightful 

 companion, and frequently a charming host at 

 international meetings of meteorologists. No 

 one knew better that meteorology is a cooperative 

 science, and no one was more ready to help his 

 colleagues. From 1903 onwards he paid frequent 

 visits to England or Scotland. In the course of 

 one of these visits he formed the acquaintance of 

 Prof. Chrystal, and was invited to give a lecture 

 before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1908 

 he came to London to receive the Symons medal 

 of the Royal Meteorological Society, bringing 

 with him the first samples of his raid upon the 

 stratosphere. He was never robust, and always 

 most careful, but increasing ill-health kept him 

 away from the meeting of the Commission for 

 Scientific Aeronautics at Vienna in 1912, and he 

 was away from the Time Signal Conference at 

 Paris in October for the same reason. A New 

 Year's card received only last week spoke of 

 exhaustion following enteritis, which has ap- 

 parently brought to a close at the early age of 

 fifty-seven a career still full of promise, but yet 

 triumphant in its accomplishments. It is only 

 recently that he was elected a member of the 

 Academy of Sciences, for which meteorology has 

 to count as physics, although meteorology is a 

 cooperative science, and physics, as generally 

 understood, is distinctly individualist. But what 

 is of more importance is that, by his maintenance 

 of the observatory at Trappes, Teisserenc de Bort 

 enabled France to keep her place in the front 

 rank of the scientific investigation of the upper 

 air. The proA-ision for the future will be looked 

 for with anxious interest. W. N. Shaw. 



NOTES. 

 Sir Henry Roscoe celebrated his eitjhtieth birth- 

 day on Tuesday, January 7, at his country house, 

 Woodcote Lodge, West Horsley. His former 

 students and friends having decided to commemorate 

 the occasion by the presentation of his bust to the 

 Chemical Society of London as a tribute of appre- 

 ciation of his long life and work, a representative 



