40 



NATURE 



\Nov. II, 1880 



of European Russia the excess rose to <f'o. This region 

 of high temperature extended eastward into Siberia, as 

 far as the Irtish, or to where the centre of the greatest 

 excess of pressure prevailed. To the eastward of this 

 area of highest pressure winds were northerly, and low 

 temperature prevailed over the whole of the eastern part 

 of Asia, the deficiency at Nertchinsk, on the Upper 

 Amoor, being 6°'S below the normal. Here, again, just as 

 happened in America, places having the atmospheric 

 pressure equally high above their average presented the 

 strongest contrasts of temperature. Thus at Nertchinsk 

 pressure was o'ij4 inch, and at Bogoslovsk o"2ii inch 

 above their respective averages ; but at Bogoslovsk, on the 

 west side of the anticyclonic patch of high pressure, 

 temperature was i5°'o above, whereas at Nertchinsk on 

 the east side it was 6'-S below the average. 



This time of the year being the summer of the southern 

 hemisphere, pressure falls to the annual minimum in 

 Australia, but during December, 1878, this annual low 

 pressure was still further diminished. Pressure at this 

 season also falls to the annual minimum in the North 

 Pacific and North Atlantic, and we have seen that the 

 low pressure of these regions was likewise still further 

 diminished. But in the case of the Atlantic it was 

 accompanied with a vitally important difterence. The 

 centre of lowest pressure of the North Atlantic in 

 ■winter, which is commonly located about Iceland, was 

 removed many hundreds of miles to southward, and an 

 unwonted development of extraordinarily high pressure 

 appeared to northward, overspreading the extensive 

 region of, at least, Baffin's Bay, Greenland, Iceland, 

 Faro, and Shetland. 



It was to this region of high pressure that the extreme 

 severity of our British weather at the time was due. This 

 high-pressure region was intimately connected with, and 

 in all likelihood occasioned directly by the atmospheric 

 movements resulting from the enormous extent of low- 

 pressure to southward, with its large centres of still lower 

 pressures in the United States, mid-Atlantic, and the 

 North Sea, where pressures were respectively o'i46 inch, 

 o'322 inch, and o'So; inch below the normals. If future 

 inquiry establish such a direct connection between the 

 areas of low and high pressure, it is evident that when 

 we come to attempt, on scientific grounds, to forecast the 

 weather of the coming season for the British Islands, 

 we must look to the Atlantic for the data on which the 

 forecast is to be based. 



In the winter months pressure rises to the annual maxi- 

 mum over Central Asia, and in America about the region 

 of the Rocky JMountains. In December 1878, however, 

 pressure rose in both regions greatly above its usually 

 very high average, the excess being nearly a quarter of 

 an inch in the valleys of the Yenisei, Obi, Irtish, and 

 Tobal, about lat. 60°, and o'2oo in America in the Colum- 

 bia Valley. It follows therefore that with the singular 

 outstanding exception of the high-pressure area of Green- 

 land, the meteorological peculiarities which make Decem- 

 ber, 1S78, so memorable, arose out of a distribution of the 

 earth's atmosphere, essentially the same that commonly 

 obtains at this time of the year, but the usual irregulari- 

 ties in the distribution of the pressure appeared in more 

 pronounced characters. 



We have now had the pleasure, through the courtesy 

 of the late General Myer, of presenting our readers with 

 a series of Twelve of these unique Weather Maps, which 

 open out a new future to meteorology. The map for 

 December, 1878, closes the series which appears in 

 N.\TURE. The questions which a perusal of these 

 maps raises are of first importance, whether we consider 

 the atmospheric changes they disclose, these being re- 

 peatedly so vast as to stretch across four continents at 

 one time, besides being often profoundly interesting 

 from their influence both on the food supplies and 



the commercial intercourse of nations ; or the large 

 problems hereby presented, with hints toward their solu- 

 tion, which underlie physical geography, climatology, and 

 other branches of atmospheric physics. We have thus 

 had shown us from month to month, in a way not hitherto 

 possible, the great atmospheric changes as influenced by 

 oceans and continents, including the important parts 

 played in bringing about these changes, by mountain 

 ranges, extensive plateaux, and physically well defined 

 river basins. Much yet, however, remains to be done, 

 principally by extending the network of observation in 

 order that the Weather Maps may show, in an approxi- 

 mately adequate manner, the meteorology also of the 

 North Pacific and the southern hemisphere. Till this be 

 done many fundamental questions cannot be discussed, 

 such as the inter-relations of the different continents 

 and oceans of the globe in their bearings on success- 

 ive meteorological changes ; and the important inquiry 

 as to whether the pressure of the earth's atmosphere 

 be practically a constant from month to month, and, 

 if not, what are the conditions or forces on which the 

 observed differences depend. For the bringing of this 

 great international work to so happy a consummation, 

 we look with confidence to the War Department of the 

 United States, since this implies no more than a con- 

 tinuance of the same energy and enlightened liberality 

 that have won for the Americans their high position in 

 meteorology. 



SEARLES VALENTINE WOOD 



PAL/EONTOLOGY has sustained a severe loss in the 

 death of the veteran explorer of the English Plio- 

 cene deposits. Born towards the close of the last century, 

 the late Mr. Wood was from an early age an ardent col- 

 lector and student of the fossils so abundantly found in 

 the crag-pits of East Anglia. At this period the facilities 

 for collecting the fossils of the English Pliocene strata 

 were much greater than at present. Fresh pits for the 

 purpose of obtaining the shelly marls and sands, which 

 were then extensively used for manure, were continually 

 being opened in the counties of Norfolk and Sufiblk, 

 while at the present time the new chemical manures have 

 caused the crag to be quite neglected by agriculturists. 

 The geologist who visits the Eastern Counties at the pre- 

 sent day to study the Pliocene has to content himself 

 with such exposures as he can find in old pits, now often 

 overgrown with vegetation and which are used as sheep- 

 folds or stackyards. 



Mr. Searles Wood, as he himself said, was born within 

 sight of one crag-pit ; he resided for a great part of his 

 life in the crag country, and hoped to be buried within 

 sight of a crag-pit. 



In the year 1839 Mr. Searles Wood joined the Geologi- 

 cal Society of London. The following year was marked 

 by the establishment of the London Clay Club by seven 

 earnest students of fossils, of ivhom we believe only 

 Prof John Morris, formerly of University College, Lon- 

 don, still survives. The object which the members of 

 the London-Clay Club set before themselves was the 

 figuring and describing of the British Tertiary fossils. 



The London-Clay Club was the forerunner of, and 

 became merged in, the Pateontographical Society of 

 London. This Society has published between thirty and 

 forty volumes, which have appeared annually, and has 

 accomplished a most valuable work in the illustration of 

 our British fossils. 



At a very early date Mr. Searles Wood and his friend 

 the late Mr. Frederick Edwards agreed to divide between 

 them the work of describing the moUusca of the English 

 Tertiary formations. The absence of marine Miocene 

 formations in this country divides our British Tertiaries 

 into two great groups, the Older Tertiaries, in which the 

 great majority of the mollusca belong to extinct species 



