March 24, 1 881] 



NA TURE 



489 



with the various forms of true deer, that the new stag 

 from Amoorland is exceedingly hke the Wapiti. The 

 resemblance indeed of the two animals is so close that 

 except for the character of the horns it would be 

 exceedingly difficult to distinguish them. But so far 

 as can be ascertained from an examination of the present 

 specimens, which is now believed to be nearly four years 

 old, and from the particulars given of other horns by Dr. 

 Bolau in his description of the present animal,' Luhdorf's 

 deer, as regards the character of its antlers, more nearly 

 resembles our red deer than its American ally. 



The discovery of a deer so closely allied to the Wapiti 

 in Eastern Asia is a fact of special interest in geo- 

 graphical distribution. Taken in connection with other 

 similar phenomena which have lately come to light, it 

 tends to show very evidently that 

 Northern America owes its many 

 resemblances to the Paloearctic fauna, 

 not to any former land connection 

 between Europe and North America, 

 as was formerly supposed by the 

 advocates of the fabulous "Atlantis," 

 but to a bygone extension of land 

 between Eastern Asia and Western 

 America. By some such passage 

 there can be little doubt that the 

 ancestors of the Wapiti, the Ameri- 

 can Bears, the Mountain Goat, and 

 the Rocky Mountain Sheep found 

 their way into the New World, to 

 the more original fauna of which they 

 have no sort of relationship. _ 



pressure remains pretty constant during the year. This 

 peculiarity becomes strongly marked at Zacatecas, the 

 highest station, 81S9 feet above the sea, where the 

 Januaiy and July pressures are the same, and the lowest 

 mean, that of March and August, falls only o"oi6 inch 

 below the annual mean, and the highest, that of November, 

 rises only o'o24 inch above it. At all the stations the 

 singular protrusion of a high pressure into the Atlantic 

 and adjoining regions in the height of summer is repre- 

 sented in the means. 



Of the greatest possible interest are the curves of the 

 diurnal oscillations of the barometer, deduced from the 

 hourly observations at the central station at Mexico, 

 these curves being quite distinct, so far as we are aware, 

 from the curves of any other intertropical place for which 



METEOROLOGY IN MEXICO'- 



THE intertropical position of 

 Mexico, on a high plateau 

 between two continents and two vast 

 oceans, renders the investigation of 

 its meteorology peculiarly interest- 

 ing. It is now more than four years 

 since this problem was begun to be 

 worked out with no little ability by 

 the . Mexican meteorologists, and, 

 when the resources of the country are 

 taken into account, with a spirit and 

 liberality deserving of every com- 

 mendation. This praise will not ap- 

 pear overstrained when we say that 

 we have now before us for the city 

 of Mexico a statement of the pres- 

 sure, temperature, humidity, clouds, 

 rainfall, direction and velocity of the 

 wind, ozone, and other miscellaneous 

 phenomena for every hour of the 

 night as well as of the day, from 

 March 6, 1877, down to October 16, iggo ; and on the same 

 sheet, in addition to the above, a daily statement of the 

 chief meteorological elements for some thirty stations 

 situated in various parts of Mexico, and at heights 

 varjing from 7 to 8189 feet above the sea. Annual 

 r'esuvies are also before us, that for 1879 having been 

 received some time since. 



During 1879 t'le mean atmospheric pressure at Tlaco- 

 talpam, ^tuated near the sea and only 11 feet above it, 

 was 29 938 inches, rising to the maximum, 30-075 inches 

 in January, and falling to the minimum 29-851 inches in 

 August. This seasonal distribution of the pressure holds 

 good till the more elevated stations are reached, when 



• Abk, d. Nat. Vercins zu Haiiihirg. i88o, p. 33. 



'" Datos Meteorc logicos : Resumen de las Observajiones practicad-as en 

 varies Lugares de la Rtpublica durante el Ano de 1879." (Per el In^eniero 

 Civil -v. Reyes, (Mexico, 1880) ••Bole:in del Ministeno de Fomento de 

 la Republica Mexicana." Tom. ii. iii., iv v. 



Fio. ;.— The Luhdorf's C 



observations exist. The peculiarity lies in this, that -while 

 the morning maximum and the afternoon minimum 

 rei-nain large at all seasons, the morning minimum di- 

 minishes in amount as the sun-imer advances ; and during 

 the strictly suratner months it dees not even fall so low 

 as the daily mean. Now this is an outstanding pecu- 

 liarity of the curves of diurnal pressure in the extra- 

 tropical inland region of the great Europeo-Asiatic 

 continent, and it becomes the more pronounced the more 

 we advance into the interior of that continent. This 

 result, viewed in connection with the other diurnal curves, 

 forms a very valuable contribution to this difficult branch 

 of the science. 



The mean temperature for 1879 at Mexico, 7434 feet 

 high, was 59°-5, May being the warmest month, 64°'6, 

 and December and January the coldest, 55°-4 ; and these 

 were generally the months of extreme temperature over the 



