195 
NATURE 
[APRIL 25, 1912 
the first at the same elevation. The results, how- 
ever, do not at present lead to any definite conclusion, 
which, indeed, was hardly to bé expected, but they 
were worth undertaking, and it is to be hoped they 
will be continued, for they may enable more precise 
estimates to be made of the change of temperature 
that would bring back an ice age, and the meteor- 
ological conditions most favourable to it. The small 
glaciers in the Alps tell us the conditions under which 
they can exist at the present day, so that we may 
infer from the relics of similar glaciers in the Jura, 
Schwarzwald, and similar ranges that like conditions 
prevailed in them during the Ice age. 
Tue Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued 
a useful report on the climatology of Tripoli and 
Benghazi, prepared at the Central Meteorological 
Office by Dr. Eredia, with an interesting preface by 
Prof. Palazzo. Some of the observations used have 
already been published in the Annals of the French 
and Italian Meteorological Offices and other publica- 
tions, but the recent occupation of those parts by 
Italy has made it desirable to issue a separate publi- 
cation, brought, so far as practicable, up to date. All 
the principal meteorological elements are dealt with 
in considerable detail; we have extracted the follow- 
ing notes :—Tripoli (July, 1892, to May, 1911): Mean 
temperature, January, 121° C.; July, 25:8°; year, 
197°; absolute maximum, 43:0°, in June and Sep- 
tember; minimum, 1-4°, in January. Mean annual 
rainfall, 420-4 mm.; wettest month, December, 113-7 
mm.; driest, July, 0.5 mm. Average number of rain- 
days, 51:1. Benghazi (January, 1891, to May, 1905) : 
Mean temperature, January, 13:2°; July, 25-6°; year, 
203°. From another series (August, 1886, to 
February, 1891) the absolute maximum was 40:0°, in 
June; minimum, 6-6°, in February. Rainfall (1886— 
1905): year, 276-3 mm.; wettest month, 77-4 mm., in 
January; driest, 0-0, in August. The rain-days were 
55:1 in the yearly average. June-August were 
practically rainless. 
In The Times of April 16, and in Symons’s Meteoro- 
logical Magazine for April, Dr. H. R. Mill discusses 
the rainfall of the winter six months, October, 1911- 
March, 1912, in the British Isles. In this period the 
excessive rainfall was as remarkable as the drought 
of the summer of 1911. He shows in a very interest- 
ing manner, by selecting representative stations from 
the mass of materials at his disposal, that although 
as a whole excessive, the distribution of the rainfall 
siderable area had an excess of more than 50 per cent. 
Expressed in percentages of the average, England and 
Wales as a whole had a mean of 141, Scotland 111, 
Ireland 136 per cent. For the Thames Valley above 
Teddington, an area of about 3800 square miles, the 
rainfall of the winter six months, 1911-12, was greater 
than the annual amount in seven years out of the 
last twenty-nine. 
Many of our readers will remember that the 
management of the Kew Observatory (Surrey) and 
the Eskdalemuir Observatory (Dumfriesshire) was 
recently transferred to the Meteorological Committee. 
The meteorological and geophysical elements 
observed at these stations, together with those made 
at Valencia Observatory (Kerry), and the wind com- 
ponents for four representative stations are, from 
January, 1911, published monthly in The Geophysical 
Journal. This work forms a very useful addition to 
the ‘‘ British Meteorological and Magnetic Yearbook.” 
All the units employed are based on the C.G.S. 
system, and although these have to some extent been 
used in the ‘‘Weekly Weather Report” they are not 
_ necessarily obvious to ordinary observers; their mean- 
ing is, however, lucidly explained by Dr. Shaw in 
the preface. The following examples illustrate some 
of the changes from the usual notation : atmospheric 
pressure is expressed in “‘bars,’’ one bar being ap- 
proximately equivalent to the pressure of 750 mm. of 
mercury; temperature is given in degrees absolute 
measured from a zero of 273° C. below freezing 
| point; solar radiation is expressed in “‘ watts” per 
| em.?, instead of the usual gram-calorie; the latter 
| unit is equivalent to 0-07 watt. 
| tofore, 
was very irregular, and he remarks:—‘It is very | 
common, perhaps we might say usual, to find the 
rainfall at the opposite ends of Great Britain swinging | 
to opposite sides of the average and the same diverg- 
ence is also apparent in Ireland.” The rainfall was 
below the average in Scotland, north and west of the 
Great Glen, but above the average everywhere else. 
In the eastern mountain mass between Perthshire 
and Aberdeenshire the excess was 40 per cent. and 
upwards. 
England had an excess of more than 50 per cent., 
and Sussex 7o per cent.-and upwards. In the 
extreme north-west of Ireland the excess was less 
than 1o per cent., while in the south-east a con- 
NO. 2217, VOL. 89] 
Most of South Wales and the south of | 
| date, 
THE annual summary of the Indian Weather Review 
for 1910 contains abstracts of observations taken at 
a large number of stations, and special reports from 
the Kodaikanal and Bombay Observatories. One of 
the most notable features of the year observed at the 
former station was the rapid decrease in sun-spot 
activity. In 1909 the mean daily number was 379; 
in 1910 18. The sun’s disc was free from spots on 
fifty-six days. In the valuable discussion of the 
meteorological elements the year is divided, as here- 
into four seasons: cold and hot weather, 
south-west monsoon and retreating south-west mon- 
soon periods, while the rainfall is illustrated by maps 
for each of the four periods. On the whole, 1910 was 
the coldest year on record since 1894. Only February 
and May had an excess of temperature. April, 
November, and December were much colder than 
usual. On the general average of all stations in the 
plains, 1910 had the heaviest rainfall since the above 
notwithstanding that the winter and spring 
seasons were drier than usual. 
THE remarkably fine weather recently has had 
decided effects upon plant and animal life. A corre- 
spondent states that he saw a cabbage butterfly, 
Papilio brassicae, flying in his garden in the Hamp- 
stead Garden Suburb on Wednesday, April 17, and on 
April 21 several were seen in the course of an hour. 
The earliest date given by Gilbert White is April 28. 
Cabbage whites were seen at Appledram, near 
Chichester, on April 13, and the cuckoo was heard 
