142 



NATURE 



[Dec. ii, 1879 



Melbourne on the same day or on the following day, so that the 

 change in error of the places interpolated with second differences 

 from the Nautical Almanac, has merely to be carried back for 

 9i hours or carried forward for 14J hours. The resulting mean 

 solar parallax is S" - 96, and assuming that the probable error of 

 a single observation of declination is o"'5, the probable error of 

 the result is ± o" - o5l. The value obtained by Prof. Newcomb 

 from similar observations in the year 1S62 was 8""855, nearly 

 identical with that which Leverrier held to be pretty definitive, 

 and which was given by the planetary theories, or 8" - 86. In 

 most of the national ephemerides, Newcomb's mean value, 

 obtained in his paper on the sun's distance in the Washington 

 Observations for 1865, or S"'S4S, has been adopted; the Con- 

 naissance des Temps substitutes Leverrier's. 



METEOROLOGICAL NOTES 

 Mr. E. Knipping, Tokio, has written a brief account of three 

 typhoons which occurred in the China and Japan Seas in Sep- 

 tember, 1878. In twelve charts and one diagram he sets down 

 the paths of the three storms and the weather of each day from 

 the 15th to 2 1st, when the third and most violent of the typhoons 

 occurred. The heaviest squalls and gusts of wind were met with 

 in the front part of the typhoon, or with northeast and south- 

 east winds, whereas they are hardly mentioned in the ship's logs 

 with south-west winds in the rear of the storm. The path of the 

 typhoon was to north-west from 15th to 19th, to north on 19th 

 and 20th, when it recurved to the north-east, following a course 

 midway between Japan and the continent. Its rate of progress 

 was 10 miles an hour on the average, rising to 25, and falling to 

 2\ miles an hour. The diagram, which summarises the author's 

 views regarding the behaviour of the winds, seems to raise ques- 

 tions which call for further inquiry. Thus the south-east wind 

 shows, near the centre of the hypothetical typhoon, an in-curving 

 tendency, which becomes less and less on receding from the 

 centre, till, towards the outskirts of the storm, it is represented as 

 blowing outwards. On the other hand, the north-east wind, im- 

 mediately contiguous, very decidedly in-curves near the outskirts 

 of the storm, but on approaching the centre the incurvation be- 

 comes less and less till it disappears. The statement is made that 

 at a distance of 900 miles from the centre, with a north-east 

 wind, the centre of the typhoon bears right ahead, but with a 

 south-east wind the centre bears south. For a satisfactory 

 examination of the points here raised, and other points, such as 

 the remarkable changes in the form of the typhoon while off the 

 coast of Shanghai, fuller data are required, so that the positions 

 of the centre at different times be more accurately ascertained. 

 The publication of details of the data in an appendix to the work 

 is equally necessary. 



Prof. Nipher's Missouri Weather Service Report for October 

 last is to hand, and is of '.nore than usual interest. The returns 

 show the weather of that State to have been unprecedently warm 

 for the season, the mean temperature of St. Louis, viz., 63°'i, 

 being the highest for any October of the past forty years. At 

 the same time the rainfall was only C57 inch, being, with the 

 single exception of 1S72, when the rainfall was 029 inch, the 

 driest October in forty years. The rainfall was unusually small 

 over no inconsiderable portion of the State, extending to north- 

 west of St. Louis, and in the extreme north-east it amounted 

 only to about a J inch, whereas, on the other hand, within a 

 limited district immediately to southward round Cuba, and over 

 a pretty extensive region in the west, lying to north and south of 

 Kansas City, it exceeded 4 inches. The service is being ably 

 and vigorously worked, eighteen new stations being added in 

 November, so that there are now seventy-three stations, the 

 reults of whose observations are quickly sent broadcast over the 

 State and beyond it, reaching Europe even in the third week of 

 the following month. We observe with much satisfaction that 

 the efficiency of this weather service is to be greatly enlarged by 

 the active co-operation of the directors of the principal railroads, 

 who have intimated their readiness to make meteorological 

 observations a regular part of the duties of their station agents 

 at points selected by Prof. Nipher himself. 



In connection with the meteorological work proper of the 

 Missouri Weather Service, Prof. Nipher has been carrying out 

 a magnetic survey of the State during the summers of 1S78 and 

 1879, the expense of the survey having hitherto been met by 

 private subscriptions. The results of this survey are given on a 

 valuable map which accompanies the October Report, showing 

 the lines of equal magnetic variation, and attention is directed 



to the tendency of the needle to set at right angles to those 

 river-valleys which do not run north and south. A report on 

 the climatology of Missouri is in course of preparation by Prof. 

 Nipher, at the request of the State Board of Agriculture. It is 

 with some surprise we learn that the expense of organising and 

 carrying on this service has been wholly borne by two of the 

 directors and Prof. Nipher. But this state of things the Ameri- 

 cans are too sharp-sighted to allow to go on, it being in the 

 interests of the State to provide that a service which is so ener- 

 getically and effectually working out the climatologies of its 

 various agricultural centres does not run the risk of being starved 

 out for want of the few dollars required to meet its working 

 expenses. 



Capt. Toynbee, in the Journal of the Meteorological Society 

 for October, gives an interesting comparison of the temperature 

 of the Atlantic during the Decembers of 1S77 and 1878 from 

 observations made on the temperature of the sea every four hours 

 of these months by Capt. Watson, of the Canard steamer 

 Algeria. The result shows that for the outward and homeward 

 passages to America the part of the Atlantic traversed by the 

 Algeria was 3" '2 warmer in December, 1S7S, than in December, 

 1S77. A comparison is also made of the mean temperature of 

 the British Isles, and from observations at about forty stations it 

 is shown that the December of 1S7S was 8°o colder than that of 

 1S77, "in spite of the fact that the sea to the westward was more 

 than 3°'o warmer." The higher temperature of the sea in 

 December, 187S, would appear not to have extended far to 

 northward, seeing that on the west of Scotland the sea was half 

 a degree colder than in 1S77, and in Faro \°"J colder, whilst on 

 the north-west of Iceland the sea during December, 1878, was 

 o' '2 warmer. The interest attached to such an inquiry centres in 

 the point that S°"0 greater cold over the British Isles during 1878 as 

 compared with 1S77 may have been brought about in consequence 

 of the fact that the Atlantic to west-south-westward was more than 

 3° - o warmer. It is, for example, possible that this abnormal distri- 

 bution of temperature in the Atlantic was more or less immediately 

 connected with the more southerly course taken by our European 

 storms since the end of October, 187S, from which have inevit- 

 ably resulted the unusual prevalence of easterly and northerly 

 winds and the cold weather we have had since. An inquiry 

 more practically important could scarcely be suggested to 

 meteorologists than an investigation of the point suggested 

 many years ago by Sabine as to there being a possible connec- 

 tion between the temperature of the tropical and subtropical 

 waters of the Atlantic during the autumn months and the severity 

 or mildness of our European winters ; and certainly no more 

 suitable period could be selected for the inquiry than the last two 

 years, a twelvemonth's warm, fine weather having set in during 

 October, 1877, and a period of cold weather, exceptionally 

 protracted and severe, having commenced in the end of October, 

 187S. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



At the meeting of the Geographical Society, on Monday 

 evening, Mr. Wilfrid S. Blunt read a paper entitled " A Visit to 

 Nejd," in which he gave an interesting account of a journey made 

 last winter in company with his wife, Lady Anne Blunt, from 

 Damascus southwards to Jof and the Jebel Shammar in Central 

 Arabia. The results of Mr. Blunt's expedition may be thus briefly 

 summed up. The oases of Kaf and 'Ittery have now been visited 

 and the Wady Sirhan explored by Europeans for the first time. 

 By taking barometrical observations along its entire length, 

 Mr. Blunt ascertained that the Wady Sirhan from Ezrak to Jof 

 lies on nearly a uniform level of 1,800 feet above the sea, 

 from which he thinks that it was formerly an inland sea, and is 

 miscalled a Wady or valley. Along the whole distance he 

 roughly surveyed the pilgrim road, marking the position of the 

 wells and the reservoirs made by Zobeyde. Mr. Blunt ha- 

 constructed a map of the Jebel Shammar district. The 

 interesting outcome of his" journey, probably, is the collection 

 of a series of facts relating to the physical condition of the great 

 sand desert of Nefud, and in some material respects his observa- 

 tions are at variance with those of Mr. Palgrave. Mr. Blunt 

 appears to be the first to call attention to the deep horse-shoe 

 hollows, called by the Arabs fulj, with which the whole surface 

 of the plain is pitted. 



In the present critical state of affairs between China and 

 Japan in regard to the suzerainty of the Loochoo Islands, muth 



