March 21, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



285 



2. The golden rod continues to bloom for 

 several weeks after the hay fever season is 

 over.* In western Xorth Carolina, for in- 

 stance, the hay fever season concludes about 

 October 1, but the Canadian golden rod 

 (Solidago canadensis) brightens the autumn 

 landscape until November. In our hay fever 

 clinic at the Charity Hospital of New Or- 

 leans, the fall hay fever season concludes about 

 October 26, but the golden rod continues to 

 bloom until December. 



3. Our research department exposes its at- 

 mospheric-pollen-plates in various parts of the 

 United States, and in this way, the atmos- 

 pheric-pollens are caught and examined. The 

 pollens of the golden rod are never found on 

 these plates, proving that this pollen is not 

 atmospheric. Unless the pollen is in the air, 

 as in the eases of the ragweeds, grasses and 

 other wind-pollinated plants, it can not cause 

 hay fever unless the nostrils are applied 

 directly to the flower, or are used in large 

 quantities for room decorations, in which case 

 the pollen may fall within the limited space. 



The i>ollcn of the golden rod may cause a 

 reaction when applied directly to the nostrils, 

 or when used in large quantities for room 

 decorations. As far as being a cause of hay 

 fever, however, it is absolutely negligible. It 

 is one of our most beautiful flowers, and well 

 merits its selection as the national flower of 

 the United States. 



w. scheppegreli, 

 American H.vyfever Prevention Associa- 

 tion; Chief of Hayfever Clinic, Char- 

 ity Hospital; Ex-president American 

 Academy op Ophthalmology and Otol- 

 arynooloot 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Manual of Meteorology, Part IV. The Relor 

 Hon of the Wind to the Barometric Pres- 

 sure. By Sir Napier Shaw, Cambridge, 

 University Press. 1919. 



* ' ' Susceptibility to Hayfever, and Its Relation 

 to Heredity, Age, and Seasons," W. Schepp^rell, 

 M.D., United States Public Health Reports, July 

 19, 1918. 



The British Meteorological Office during the 

 past four years has been called upon to an- 

 swer a good many questions put to them 

 by the Army, Navy and Air Services. The 

 requests for detailed information regarding 

 wind, weather and the structure of the atmos- 

 phere were numerous and urgent. For in both 

 offensive and defensive operations the military 

 authorities suddenly realized how all impor- 

 tant a knowledge of aerography was. In at- 

 tempting to give definite data, Sir Napier 

 Shaw, as Scientific Advisor to H. M. Govern- 

 ment and chairman of the Meteorological Com- 

 mittee, says that he found as a guiding prin- 

 ciple of great practical utility, the relation of 

 the wind to the distribution of pressure. The 

 underlying assumption is that the flow of air 

 in the free atmosphere follows very closely the 

 laws of motion under balanced forces, depend- 

 ing upon the spin of the earth and the spin in 

 a small circle on the earth. 



There are eleven chapters in the book. The 

 opening chapters give details of the determina- 

 tion of the pressure gradient and the wind. 

 Land and sea relations of surface wind to the 

 gradient, turbulence in relation to gustinesa 

 and cloud sheets, eddy clouds, the dominance 

 of the stratosphere, coastal refraction of isobars 

 and the d.ynamical properties of revolving fluid 

 in the atmosphere, are treated in some detail 

 in successive chapters. 



Space permits of but one quotation from 

 the book and that is almost the last para- 

 graph; but here the author drives another 

 nail in the coffin of the convoctional theory of 

 the cause of cyclones. 



It has long been supposed that the variations of 

 temperature at the surface are themselves the cause 

 of the original circula.tion of the cyclone, but it is 

 much more easy to explain convection along the 

 core as the effect of an existing circulation above, 

 than vice versa, and there are so many examples of 

 convection attended even by copious rainfall whidi 

 produce no visible circulation that it is di£Scult to 

 regard convection from the surface as a sufficient 

 cause of our numerous depressions. 



Sir Napier deals at some length with the 

 relation between the surface wind and the 

 geostrophic wind at sea-level. This is pecul- 



