September 8, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



357 



Hail damage is both, local and occasional. 

 In some countries, particularly in France, re- 

 liance is placed in cannon, rockets or lightning 

 rods to protect crops from hail. Professor 

 Angot, head of the French Meteorological 

 Service, stigmatized these as useless. For ex- 

 ample, " the Observatoire de Bordeaux, situated 

 in Floirac . . . was . . . provided with a ' niag- 

 ara ' (lightning rod) September 22, 1912. The 

 commune of Floirac was devastated by hail on 

 August 15, 1887; but for the succeeding 25 

 years it had been immune. Again in 1912, two 

 disastrous falls of hail occurred at Floirac, 

 one on July 5, before the installation of the 

 ' niagara,' the second on October 20, when a 

 heavy shower of very large hard hailstones 

 fell upon the ' niagara ' itself during a pe- 

 riod of 2i minutes." 10 Hail insurance, how- 

 ever, is the usual mode of protection. In- 

 surance companies are without adequate 

 means for fixing the premiums because the 

 average occurrence of hail can hardly be 

 mapped without an excessive number of sta- 

 tions and a very long period of observations. 

 Hail damage is at times extreme. For in- 

 stance, in South Carolina, July 6 to 7, 1914, 

 crop losses estimated at $955,000 were sus- 

 tained over an area of about 50,000 acres of 

 crop land. The damage was done mostly by 

 immense quantities of hailstones the size of 

 ordinary marbles. 11 Hail at times destroys 

 live stock also. Thus in Illinois on June 20, 

 1915, 50 shoats, some sheep and cattle were re- 

 ported to have been killed by hail. The skulls 

 and backs of some of the hogs were said to 

 have been broken. 12 In cities, skylights, win- 

 dows and greenhouses sustain the most dam- 

 age. Plate glass even 1 to 2 centimeters thick 

 may be shattered. Horses frequently and peo- 

 ple occasionally are injured. 



o The material for the summary above, except 

 as specified in foot-notes 7 and 8, was taken from 

 J. von Hann's "Lehrbuch der Meteorologie, " 

 Leipzig, 1915, pp. 708-725. 



10 See translation, Monthly Weather Bev., 

 March, 1914, p. 166. 



ii " Climatological Data: South Carolina Sect- 

 tion," Vol. 1, July, 1914, p. 56. 



12 " Climatological Data: Illinois Section," Vol. 

 2, June, 1915; p. 43. - 



Damage by other features of thunderstorms 

 such as the squall and lightning, is, in general, 

 much greater than the occasional hail destruc- 

 tion. Nevertheless, hail can destroy crops as 

 completely as a tornado or a flood. 



R. H. SCOTT, 1833-1916 

 One of the pioneers in synoptic meteorology, 

 Dr. E. H. Scott, died in England, June 18. 

 He was well known as the chief of staff of the 

 Meteorological Office from the formation of 

 the Eoyal Society's Meteorological Committee 

 in 1867 until his retirement on a pension in 

 1900. He was also secretary of the Interna- 

 tional Meteorological Committee from its com- 

 mencement in 1874, until 1900. In 1861, 

 Fitzroy had begun the issue of forecasts and 

 storm warnings, based on information collected 

 daily by telegraph and charted on maps. The 

 issue of forecasts and storm warnings was 

 suppressed; but at the request of the board of 

 trade the issue of storm warnings was at once 

 revived. The telegraphic service was de- 

 veloped, and the first result of Scott's work 

 appeared in 1876 in a little book, entitled 

 " Weather Charts and Storm "Warnings." The 

 issue of forecasts was recommenced on April 

 1, 1879, and has continued ever since. This 

 was followed in 1883 by Scott's "Elementary 

 Meteorology," which took foremost place as a 

 text-book of meteorology. From that time on- 

 ward Scott devoted his attention mainly to 

 the administration of the office and to the 

 work of the Meteorological Society. 13 



ALEKSANDB IVANOVICH VOEIKOV, 1842-1916 



Voeikov (Woeikow), the eminent meteorol- 

 ogist and geographer, died in Petrograd, Jan- 

 uary 28 (February 10), 1916. He was born in 

 Moscow, and while still young traveled widely 

 in Europe, Asia and the two Americas. In 

 1884 he published his great work, " The Cli- 

 mates of the World " (German translation, 

 1887). The following year he was appointed 

 professor of physical geography at the Univer- 



is From W. N. Shaw, Nature, London, Vol. 

 XCVXL, 1916, p. 365. A history of British 

 weather forecasting and an account of the or- 

 ganization and work of the Meteorological Office 

 in London is published in the Monthly Weather 

 Bev., September, 1915, pp. 449-152. 



