February 24, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



299 



watched the spouts carefully through the tele- 

 scope of his theodolite, and obtained some defi- 

 nite measurements as to the height of the larg- 

 est spout. According to his calculations the 

 height above the sea of the top of the inverted 

 cone was 5,014 ft. The cones at the top and 

 bottom of the spout were about 100 ft. in diam- 

 eter, and the length of each cone from its base 

 to the points at which the sides of the spout ap- 

 peared parallel was about 250 ft. Mr. H. C. 

 Russell, the Government Astronomer of New 

 South Wales, has published an admirable, illus- 

 trated account of this remarkable series of 

 waterspouts, together with a record of previous 

 waterspouts, and some observations as to the 

 conditions under which these phenomena oc- 

 cur. (Journ. Roy. Soc, N.S.W., Vol. XXXII. , 

 1898.) 



ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF THE WEATHER 

 BUREAU. 



The Annual Report of Professor Willis L. 

 Moore, Chief of the Weather Bureau, empha- 

 sizes once again the wide scope of the work of 

 the Bureau and the value of this work to the 

 public at large. The extension of the meteor- 

 ological service to include observations at vari- 

 ous stations in the West Indies, Mexico and 

 Colombia has already been referred to in these 

 Notes. The observations made during the In- 

 ternational Cloud Year are under discussion and 

 will soon be published. The total number of 

 forecasts distributed during the year, exclusive 

 of those published in the daily papers, was, 

 approximately, 23,531,500. Sixty-four percent, 

 of this distribution was by logotype cards, sent 

 through the mail or carried by messengers ; 23 J?) 

 by maps and bulletins ; 10 ^o through coopera- 

 tion of railroad, telegraph and telephone lines ; 

 Zfo by telegraph and telephone lines at the ex- 

 pense of the Bureau. Weather maps to the 

 number of 5,239,800 were distributed. A sec- 

 tion of the Climate and Crop Service has been 

 established in Alaska. A meteorological chart 

 of the Great Lakes has been issued monthly 

 during the season of navigation. 



meteorological chart OF THE GREAT LAKES. 



The Meteorological Chart of the Great Lakes, 

 dated January 4th, contains a summary, for the 

 year 1898, of the storms on the Lakes, the 



number of disasters and of lives lost, the values 

 of the vessels lost, and the causes of the dis- 

 asters. Thirty-nine vessels were totally lost, 

 all as the result of gales. Of the partial losses 

 (104), 22 were due to fog and 82 to gales. The 

 number of lives lost was 96. The relative fre- 

 quency of fog over the Lakes during the season 

 of navigation (April 1st to December 15th) is 

 shown by five diflfierent styles of shading. 



notes. 



A notable work on the physiological effects of 

 high altitudes has recently been issued. It is an 

 English translation — entitled 'Life of Man on the 

 High Alps' (London, 1898) — of a book originally 

 written in Italian by Professor Angelo Mosso, 

 of Turin. According to Nature (January 26th) 

 this " is the first attempt that has been made 

 to present the various complex physiological 

 phenomena which man exhibits at high alti- 

 tudes in such a form as to be easily understood 

 by those who are not trained physiologists.'' 



In his Presidential address before the Royal 

 Meteorological Society on January 18th, Mr. F. 

 C. Bayard stated that in the British Isles only 

 two shillings and sixpence per square mile is 

 voted by the government for the support of 

 meteorology. This amounts to one-third of a 

 farthing per head. R. DeC. Ward. 



Harvard University. 



CUEEENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 megalithic monuments. 



At the last meeting of the German Anthro- 

 pological Society, Professor Virchow delivered 

 a long and elaborate address on the ' megalithic 

 monuments' of Europe. He rejected all theo- 

 ries so far advanced as to their builders, and 

 left it as a question for the future to settle. 



Mr. W. C. Borlase, probably the best authority 

 on the subject, is the author of a work in three 

 volumes on 'The Dolmens of Ireland.' His 

 descriptions are excellent, but in his search for 

 their constructors he loses himself in the maze 

 of Irish legendary lore, and falls into the com- 

 mon error of supposing that because the same 

 stories are told and the same superstitious prac- 

 tices obtain concerning these monuments in 

 Ireland, Spain, France and Germany there 

 must have been relations and borrowing. This 



