152 National Geographic Magazine. 



ticularly numerous during the past year — not in the United 

 States and Europe alone, but throughout the whole world. 



The growing practical importance of meteorological researches 

 has been lately evidenced perhaps in no more striking way than 

 in the establishment in Brazil of a most extensive meteorological 

 service, created by a decree of the Imperial government on April 

 4, 1888. A central meteorological institute, under the Minister 

 of Marine, is to be the centre for meteorological, magnetic and 

 other physical researches, and observations are to be made at all 

 marine and military establishments in the various provinces, on 

 the upper Amazon, in Uruguay, and on all subsidized govern- 

 ment steamers. This service should soon be fruitful in results, 

 as the meteorology of the interior of Brazil is almost absolutely 

 unknown. 



Another vast scheme has originated in Brazil in the Imperial 

 Observatory of Rio Janeiro. Senor Cruls, its director, contem- 

 plates a dictionary of the climatology of the earth, giving monthly 

 means and extremes of pressure, temperature, rainfall, wind, etc. 

 This scheme, of course, can be successful, only by international 

 co-operation. The United States Signal Service has pledged its 

 aid as regards this country. 



The former tendency among Russian meteorologists to devote 

 their greatest energies to climatological compilations has gradu- 

 ally given way to other practical work in connection with weather 

 and storm predictions, as shown by the institution by the Rus- 

 sian government of a system of storm-warnings for the benefit of 

 vessels navigating the. Black Sea, 



Blanf ord has put forth an important papei% which partially elu- 

 cidates the very intricate question of diurnal barometric changes, 

 particularly bearing on the relation of the maximum pressure to 

 critical conditions of temperature, cloudiness and rainfall. The 

 question viewed in a negative light by Lament, as to whether the 

 maximum barometric pressure could be attributed to the greatest 

 rate of increase in the temperature of the air, due, it is supposed, 

 to the reactionary effect of the heated and expanding air, has 

 been re-examined by Blanford, whose conclusions are somewhat 

 in favor of this theory. 



S. A. Hill has treated of the annual oscillation of pressure, so 

 noticeable in India, and in so doing has investigated the changes 

 of pressure for three levels, up to a height of 4500 meters. 

 The reduction of monthly barometric means at high levels, hav- 



