462 



NA TURE 



\Scpt. 16, 1880 



would so seriously cripple one of its most valuable insti- 

 tutions, and so discourage an activity which produces 

 results not only of the greatest value to science, but to the 

 practical interests of the colony. The affiliated societies 

 themselves contribute, we believe, 1,275/. annually to 

 support the work of the Institute, the whole of which is 

 spent in keeping up valuable museums and laboratories, 

 and an interest in science in nine centres of population in 

 New Zealand. Without the annual volume, we fear it 

 is impossible to get members to keep up their sub- 

 scriptions, and thus the organisation of the Institute, 

 which has stood the test of twelve years, given universal 

 satisfaction at home and abroad, and reflected the greatest 

 credit on the colony, is in danger of breaking up and 

 possibly expiring altogether. This would be little less 

 than a calamity to the colony. Not a penny of the 500/. 

 is spent in salaries ; the editing, drawing of illustrations, 

 and all else is a mere labour of love. The names of von 

 Haast, Hector, Hutton, and others, are known to men of 

 science all over the world. Dr. Hector especially has 

 acquired a high reputation for his activity, zeal, and the 

 results he has obtained. It is greatly owing to him that 

 Isew Zealand has done for science far more than any 

 colony of its age. The Institute itself is a model of 

 organisation. The grant of the annual 500/. was a wise step 

 worthy of general imitation, and its sudden extinction is a 

 cruel blow to science. We can scarcely believe that New 

 Zealand is capable of persisting in carrying out so shabby 

 and short-sighted a policy, a policy of which any country 

 should be ashamed. We trust that later news will show 

 that there has been some misunderstanding, or that the 

 Government has thought better of it, and continued a 

 grant that could not possibly be better spent. 



ALBERT J. MYER 



THE young science of meteorology has sustained 

 another heavy loss in the death of General Myer, of 

 the Signal Service of the United States, at Buffalo, New 

 York, on August 24, in the fifty-second year of his age. 

 In 1854 he entered the United States army as an assistant 

 surgeon, was assigned to special duty in the Signal Service 

 in 1S5S, and in iS5o was made chief signal officer of the 

 army, a position he held till his death. 



The distinguished services rendered by General Myer 

 to meteorology may be considered as having been made 

 chiefly during the last ten years. Americans claim for 

 the late Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, the 

 honour of having originated, upwards of thirty years ago, 

 the idea of using the telegraph for conveying information 

 regarding coming changes of weather. But it was re- 

 served to General Myer, as respects the United States, 

 to translate the idea into the action of every-day life, in 

 devising, developing, and extending a system of telegrams 

 and reports for the benefit of commerce and agriculture, 

 which as regards the completeness of its organisation, 

 the thoroughness with which it is worked, and its effective 

 success, stands out as a model system of weather telegraphy. 

 Three large weather maps are prepared and issued daily, 

 along with three daily forecasts of the weather, which 

 the telegraph at once sends through all the towns, villages, 

 and hamlets of the States ; and no time is lost, on the 

 expiry of each month, in preparing and widely circu- 

 lating a Weather Review, accompanied with maps showing 

 the storm-tracks, the geographical distribution of the 

 atmospheric pressure, temperature and rainfall for the 

 month ; together with occasional weather-maps of the 

 highest importance in their bearing on the meteorology 

 of America, Europe, and the rest of the northern 

 hemisphere. 



The other great service rendered by General Myer to 

 practical science is the system of international meteor- 

 ology established by him, one of the important outcomes 

 of which is the series of United States weather-maps 



now appearing in Nature, showing the meteorology of 

 the globe for each month. When the scheme was first 

 proposed to the Meteorological Congress at Vienna, in 

 1S73, it was difticult to regard it in any other light than 

 as an impracticable, if not wholly visionary, proposal ; 

 but the feeling quickly changed as General Myer unfolded 

 the details of its practical working, and explained that 

 what he required from his brother meteorologists, in 

 addition to their approval of the scheme, was one daily 

 observation at a selected few of their stations, he being 

 authorised by the American Government to say that they 

 would undertake the expense of collecting and discussing 

 the observations. 



As our readers are aware, the scheme in General 

 Myer's hands has been a pre-eminent success ; and a 

 body of facts is being thereby amassed, destined to fur- 

 nish the key to the larger problems of meteorology, a 

 science which, from the complex intricacies it presents, 

 requires more than any other science a whole hemisphere 

 at least as its basis of observation. Perhaps the most 

 important of the practical questions which will thus fall 

 to be dealt with are those abnormal distributions of the 

 mass of the earth's atmosphere, short continued or more 

 permanent, from which arise great storms or devastating 

 tornadoes, excessive heat or cold, fine seasons or their 

 opposites, and long-continued rains or droughts, so terrible 

 for the famines which attend them. The explanation of 

 these anomalies will doubtless be the immediate precursor 

 of an intelligent and practically successful forecasting of 

 the character of coming seasons. 



This magnificent work General Myer could not have 

 accomplished unless he had been backed by the moral 

 and material assistance so generously and readily accorded 

 him by his Government. With a settled conviction that 

 this national work, if undertaken at all, should be carried 

 out in a spirit and manner worthy of the great Republic, 

 the Government of the United States relegated the work 

 to the Signal Service of the War Department, with an 

 annual vote from the Exchequer, which, while not too 

 large for the work to be done, no Government on this side 

 the Atlantic has yet thought of emulating. 



While writing this brief notice of General Myer's work, 

 we have been repeatedly reminded of the name of Le- 

 verrier — probably because, though widely different in 

 many ways, both rendered services to meteorology to a 

 great extent identical, both possessed the rare genius of 

 organising and the resolute will that easily sets obstacles 

 aside, both secured the support of their respective 

 Governments, both were animated by large views of the 

 capabilities and requirements of the science, and both 

 were successful in an eminent degree in largely extending 

 the sphere of its operations. 



T' 



PHYSICS WITHOUT APPARATUS^ 

 V. 

 HE Science of Electricity may be regarded in several 

 different aspects. Firstly, there is the study of the 

 simple phenomena such as schoolboys delight to see : 

 the attractions and repulsions of rubbed bodies, the 

 sparks, the shocks, the heating of wires, and rotation of 

 diminutive electric engines. Secondly, there is the exact 

 measurement of electrical quantities, and the verifying of 

 the great laws of the science, involving exact manipulation 

 and standard instruments. Thirdly, there is the tech- 

 nical study of the applicdt.uns of the science, the details 

 of telegraphic apparatus, the necessities of construction 

 and maintenance, the management of electric lights, and 

 other branches of electrical engineering. Lastly, comes 

 the high mathematical theory cultivated only by the few. 

 Of the practical portions of this vast mine of scientific 

 wealth, the greater part is only to be reached by the aid 



* Continued from p. 440. 



