Becent Advances in Meteorology. 47 



Van Bebber, in writing on weather types, claims that a line 

 drawn from the center of a cyclone perpendicularly in the direc- 

 tion of the heaviest gradients will in general be perpendicular to 

 the subsequent path of the " low," and that these lows leave high 

 temperature on the right hand. 



Hill, in describing hail-stones and tornadoes in India, explains 

 them on the principle of the great diminution of temperature 

 upwards in the air, but a critic, in combating this theory, objects 

 to the high and low stations selected to show temperatures. 



The so-called " weather plant " of the trojDics has passed 

 through the process of investigation with the usual result. It 

 appears surprising that in these days it should be believed that 

 any plant or animal can foretell weather 48 hours in advance, 

 particularly after considering the vast amount of proof as to the 

 enormous rapidity with Avhich weather-changes }irogress from 

 day to day. 



Hugo Meyer, in treating the precipitation of central Germany 

 for the ten years ending in 1885, pertinently remarks that the 

 same significance does not attach to the same rainfall for all 

 places and different times of the year, for this average value is 

 not the amount most likely to fall in any particular interval of 

 time, since there is a limit to the extent of the negative devia- 

 tions on one side^that is, or no rainfall, while on the positive 

 side there is no limit. The most probable depth of rainfall, 

 therefore, is less than the mean value, the jjreponderance of 

 negative over positive deviations being about 10 per cent, and 

 sometimes as great as 20 per cent. 



Professor AV. M. Davis wrote an interesting review of Professor 

 Ferrel's popular treatise on the winds, published a year ago. 

 Commenting on the review, the editor of Meteor ologlsche Zeltscrifi, 

 Vienna, remarks on a very important opiission in the treatise, 

 namely, the absence of all reference to the diurnal variation of 

 the wind and the many interesting relations it bears to other 

 phenomena, a notable omission in a treatise specially devoted to 

 winds. The treatment of the monsoon wind and its relation to 

 the general circulation is highly commended by the editor, and 

 indicated as being all ncAv. 



Your Vice-President has elsewhere exjiressed his opinion that 

 monsoon winds, applying the term by liberal construction to 

 signif^^ winds which recur with returning seasons, cannot with 



