872 
on February 10. Lake Erie was also frozen 
completely across in some places. Since 1885 
Cayuga Lake, in New York State, has not 
been frozen from end to end until last winter. 
Many important harbors along the Atlantic 
coast were kept open only by the ceaseless 
work of ice-breaking vessels, and for more 
than a week Long Island Sound was ice-cov- 
ered, except for the narrow lane kept open by 
the frequent passage of steamers. Fire losses 
in the United States for the six weeks ending 
February 17 were the heaviest for a period of 
that length in the history of American under- 
writing, barring periods in which notable con- 
flagrations occurred. The losses for January, 
1912, were 67 per cent. greater than those of 
the same month a year ago, and 134 per cent. 
greater than those of two years ago. These 
facts are explained by underwriters as being 
largely due to frozen water-mains and hy- 
drants, and to snow-blockaded streets, which 
handicapped the firemen. Doubtless the “ old- 
est inhabitant ” can recall many winters which 
were accompanied by considerably heavier 
snowfall, severer and more frequent storms 
and higher and more destructive winds than 
those just experienced, but few there are prob- 
ably who can remember a longer period of 
frigid temperatures, with results similar to 
those cited. 
WINTER WEATHER IN FLORIDA 
Frorma, widely advertised as having “ per- 
petual summer,” or as one railroad puts it, 
“where every day is a June day,” has been 
generally regarded as having a fountain of 
perpetual something or other ever since the 
days of Ponce de Leon. Its real climate, how- 
ever, did not receive careful attention until 
large numbers of settlers were attracted by 
the recent land-boom. In A. J. Henry’s 
“Climatology of the United States” it is 
stated that in 1886 and 1894 frost destroyed 
practically all citrus fruits in the state, and 
in 1895 and 1899 trees in the northern coun- 
ties were killed in that manner. During the 
past century there have been at least seven 
severe freezes in the state, during two of 
which, 1835 and 1899, practically a zero tem- 
perature prevailed over the interior of the 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 909 
northern and western counties. Snow has 
fallen over the greater portion of the state, 
and on February 7, 1835, when a temperature 
of 7° above zero was recorded in Jacksonville, 
the St. John’s River was frozen. A tempera- 
ture of —2° F. has been recorded within the 
state. In all but eight of the last seventy 
years freezing temperatures have occurred in 
Jacksonville. January last, an extremely cold 
month over much of the United States, was 
also severe in Florida. The isotherm of 
freezing reached as far south as the middle of 
the peninsula on the 16th. At Miami, lati- 
tude 26° N., the most southerly city on the 
mainland of the United States, frost was re- 
corded on February 11. As a winter resort 
contrast Florida with certain parts of Cali- 
fornia. According to official reports, 42° F. 
was the lowest temperature recorded during 
January at both San Francisco and Los 
Angeles. 
A STORM DETECTER 
REFERENCE has already been made in these 
notes to the use of a wireless telegraph re- 
ceiver to detect the approach of storms through 
the waves set up by electrical discharges. The 
idea was taken up by M. Flageolet, who has 
just invented an instrument of such acute 
sensitiveness that it records a storm at a dis- 
tance of 300 miles. As it usually takes a 
storm about a day to travel this distance, the 
practical importance of the new invention will 
be considerable. The instrument was recently 
demonstrated before the Academy of Sciences 
in Paris by M. Violle. 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF RAIN IN CYCLONES 
THE distribution of rain in cyclonic storms 
has long been a problem of interest to meteor- 
ologists. As yet, however, all do not agree as 
to the region of heaviest precipitation with 
reference to the storm center. From early 
investigations it appeared that the rainfall 
was heaviest near the center of the depression, 
and became less and less toward the sides. 
Observations made at Blue Hill Observatory 
showed that clouds were densest and most fre- 
1ScreENcE, Vol. XXXI., No. 807, June 17, 1910, 
p. 952. 
