January 21, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



95 



material, making (Jjscreie=discontinuous stony 

 anaterial, or the material of the regolith. 



Portions of the material of the regolith are 

 already well named. Part of it is sedentary, 

 the remainder transported. The sedentary 

 portion has been called geest (Le Due, McGee) 

 and saprolite (Becker). The transported por- 

 tion is sometimes broadly included under the 

 i;erm drift, but it is more commonly classified 

 by genesis as alluvium, glacial drift, etc. Dis- 

 crete is proposed to include all these. 



It is proper to add that for many years I have 

 personally felt the need of a succinct term for 

 Tthis idea, and that I have already made experi- 

 tnental use of the word discrete in two courses 

 ■of lectures on physiography as well as in un- 

 published manuscript. Despite Dr. Branner's 

 deprecation,* I cannot avoid the feeling that 

 such tests, when critically applied, are of prac- 

 tical value, and I therefore venture to hope 

 that the new word will be found useful by some 

 •of my colleagues iu physiographic study. 



After the writing of the preceding paragraphs 

 any attention was directed to the fact that the 

 noun discrete is already in print. It is used 

 in the sense here proposed, but without deflni- 

 ■tion, in a Johns Hopkins thesis by my friend 

 Dr. A. C. Spencer, f G. K. Gilbert. 



Washington, D. C. 



harvaed's meteorological work on the 



WEST coast of south AMERICA. 



To the Editor of Science : In a previous 

 communication on ' Meteorology in South 

 America,' published in Science, October 1, 

 1897, pp. 523-525, the writer gave some facts 

 :as to the meteorological work now being done 

 in Brazil and in the Argentine Republic. It 

 would seem well to supplement the informa- 

 tion given in that letter with some notes on 

 what has been and is being done in Peruvian 

 meteorology. 



With the exception of the observations made 

 :at the ' Unanne ' observatory in Lima, all the 

 meteorological work now being done in Peru is 

 (being carried on by the Astronomical Observa- 



*SciENCE, N. S., Vol. VI., 1897, p. 134. 



fThe Geology of Massanutten Mountain in Vir- 

 ;giuia. Published by the author. Washington, 1897. 

 .See p. 33. 



tory of Harvard College. Harvard's astro- 

 nomical and meteorological work in Peru is the 

 result of a bequest left to the Harvard College 

 Observatory by the will of Mr. Uriah A. 

 Boyden, in 1887. By the terms of the will this 

 money was to aid in the establishment of an 

 observatory "at such an elevation as to be 

 free, so far as practicable, from the impedi- 

 ments to accurate observation which occur in 

 the observatories now existing, owing to atmos- 

 pheric influences." In order to determine the 

 best site for the new observatory, it was neces- 

 sary to make a more or less careful study of the 

 meteorological conditions, especially as affecting 

 the visual conditions, at various places which 

 seemed to promise well. Accordingly pre- 

 liminary stations at which astronomical and 

 meteorological work was temporarily carried 

 on were established in 1888 and 1889 in Colo- 

 rado and in California. It was, however, 

 thought advisable, for various reasons, to place 

 the new observatory within the tropics, and 

 accordingly an expedition was sent out in 1889 

 to make a study of the meteorological condi- 

 tions, and of the availability for astronomical 

 work, of various places along the west coast of 

 South America. There is, as is well known, 

 along this coast a narrow strip of desert, which 

 extends roughly from latitude 4° to 30° S., 

 over the greater part of which rain seldom or 

 never falls. This desert strip, about 1,800 

 miles in length from north to south, is probably 

 best known to scientific men, and to the world 

 at large, as containing the rich nitrate fields of 

 northern Chili, which were seized by the 

 Chilians in the late war with Peru. These 

 nitrate deposits which have, since the war, 

 furnished the greater part of the revenues of 

 Chili, are essentially a product of the dry 

 climate of this interesting region. 



The expedition above referred to was in 

 charge of Professor Solon I. Bailey, of the 

 Harvard College Observatory, and reached 

 Lima on March 6, 1889. After a survey of the 

 surrounding country it was finally decided to 

 place a temporary station on a summit about 

 20 miles northeast of Lima, at an altitude of 

 6,600 feet above sea-level. This summit, which 

 had previously been unnamed, was called Mt. 

 Harvard. Meteorological observations on Mt. 



