400 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. 33. 



direction was soutL-west to south; tbe highest wind 

 Telocity was eight miles per hour. . 



Indiana. — The special feature of this report is the 

 minimum temperature of 50°; the highest temper- 

 ature noted was 96°, and tlje rainfall varied from 2.83 

 to 7.72 inches. 



Iowa. — In this state the weather " was very favor- 

 able to the crops, being fair, nearly normal in tem- 

 perature, with an excess of rainfall, and southerly 

 winds prevailing." The greatest rainfall was that 

 of nearly ten inches in north-eastern Iowa, from the 

 20th to the 23d iiist. A number of severe squalls 

 and local storms were reported, which did mucli 

 damage. Insolation has been high, because cloudy 

 days were rare; the sun thermometer exceeded 140° 

 on twenty-one days. 



Kantia.t. — The report includes one station only, — 

 Topeka; and the month is reckoned from June 20 to 

 July 20. On fifteen days the temperature exceeded 

 90°, the ma.xinium being 98°. "On June 23, just 

 after a heavy rainstorm, the air having had a tem- 

 perature of 65° to 70° all the forenoon, 'the tem- 

 perature suddenly rose more than 20°, in consequence 

 of a hot current of air from the south. This lasted 

 hut half an hour, wlien the temperature fell as sud- 

 denly as it had risen." 



Missouri. — The temperature has been considerably 

 below the normal: there being but five instances 

 since ]8;i7, wlien lower average temperatures in July 

 have been recorded. A minimum of 52° was ob- 

 .•served. On the 13th a destructive wind-^torm passed 

 through the nnrth-western and northern portions of 

 the state. A railway train, near Browning, was 

 blown from the track, and many towns suffered 

 much damage. This storm was not a tornado, but ' a 

 steady straight blow for upwards of half an hour.' 



New Jersey. — The maximum temperatures range 

 from 91° to 98°, the minimum from 52° to 61°, the 

 rainfall from 2.21 to 4.38 inches. 



Ohio. — The mean height of the barometer, 30.025 

 inches, was higher than that of either of the three 

 months preceding. A minimum temperature of 43° 

 was reported. The rainfall ranged from 1.55 at 

 Lebanon to 7.23 at Quaker City, and was above the 

 July normal. " The railway weather signals were 

 continued during July, and by examination of the 

 reports it is found that eighty-six per cent of the 

 predictions were verified." The predictions are those 

 of the U. S. signal office. 



Tennessee. — The temperature ranged from .56° to 

 98°. A range of 0° was reported from Smithville on 

 the 7th. The rainfall ranged from 1.20 to 7.99 inches. 

 Eain fell on the average on nine and two-thirds days, 

 but the rainfall was rather unevenly distributed. 

 " In some localities the extensive rains have greatly 

 injured the crops of wheat, oats, and hay that had 

 been cut, causing the former to sprout, and render- 

 ing much of it unmarketable, while in other localities 

 a continuous drought has materially lessened the 

 chances for the growing crops, which were full of 

 sap, and it will require very favorable conditions 

 during the coming month to even partially restore 

 them." W. U. 



THE MEETING OF SfVJSS NATURAL. 

 ISTS. 



The sixty-sixth annual reunion of tlie SociHe hel- 

 vetique des .to'ences naturelles took place this year at 

 Zurich, Aug. 6-9. As at all these Swiss meetings, 

 di.-cussions were happily mingled with dally banquets, 

 at which toasis were offered to fatherland, to guests, 

 and to the older honored names in Swiss science, — 

 Suider, Heer, and Mousson, founders of the society. 

 Sometimes German, and sometimes Frencli, was 

 spoken, and sometimes both by one speaker in the 

 same speech. This year tliis venerable society 

 gathered men of many countries, and Zurich received 

 them cordially. Daubr^e and Hubert of Paris were 

 tliere; Lory of Grenoble, Credner of Dresden, 

 Fritsch of Halle, Fontannes of Lyons, Hughes and 

 Madame Hughes of Cambridge, Blanford of London, 

 Dewalque of Lifege, KiJIliker and Fick of Wurzhurg, 

 Kundt of Sirasburg, Clausius of Bonn, Szabo, 

 Schuler, and Wartha of Budapest, Wislicenus of 

 Wurzburg, Krauss of Stuttgart, von Hauer, Suess, 

 Neumayr, Moisisovics, and Goldschmidt of Vienna, 

 Vilanova of Madrid, Beyrich and Kichlhofen of 

 Berlin, Capellini of Bologna, Giordano of Rome, 

 Wiedmann and His of Leipsic, and Seguin of New 

 York. 



From communications to the Journal de Geneve, 

 under initials which we presume to refer to the well- 

 known physicist, Raoul Pictet, we glean the following 

 account of the scientific sessions of the meeting, 

 which began on the morning of Aug. 7. 



Mr. Cramer, professor of botany at the university 

 of Zurich, and president of the assembly, opened the 

 meeting with a very noteworthy address before an 

 interested audience of more than three hundred per- 

 sons. He reviewed the chinf progiess of the natural 

 sciences, and laid particular stress on the study of 

 those minute organisms which constitute life within 

 life, and whose appearance and development accom- 

 pany epidemic diseases among men. 



Reports on the various commissions (on finance, 

 geology, geodesy, earthquakes, etc.) were foUowed 

 by two communications from Profs. V. Meyer of 

 Zurich and H. Fol of Geneva. 



Mr. Meyer traced the progress of chemistry under 

 the influence of the ideas of Mendelejeff and li, 

 Mayer. He explained how these investigators had 

 been able to classify all simple solids under five dis- 

 tinctly separated families. All these bodies are 

 similar as to their general properties, the gradual in- 

 crease of their atomic weights, the similarity of their 

 chemical reactions, their atomic volume, etc. These 

 likenesses are so striking, that the memorable dis- 

 covery of gallium by M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran of 

 Paris was foreseen three years before that simple 

 body was separated. The density and atomic weight 

 of this metal had been determined by calculation 

 before its actual presence was demonstrated beyond 

 doubt by the well-known experiments of the French 

 chemist. 



Professor Meyer concluded by showing the in- 

 debtedness of science to men who think, to men 



