24 
oratory. But with these matters readers of 
SCIENCE are well acquainted. The list of pub- 
lications for the year numbers forty-six. 
The work of the division under Mr. W. deC. 
Ravenel was the most extensive in the history 
of the Commission. More than one billion fry 
were distributed. Mr. Ravenel’s report is illus- 
trated with many photographic reproductions 
and plans of the twenty-nine stations. Mr. C. 
H. Townsend’s statistical tables will prove of 
inestimable value to those who in the future may 
wish to follow the rise and decline of the differ- 
ent fisheries. The capture of one hundred and 
forty bowhead whales by the Pacific fleet in the 
Arctic Ocean produced an eventful, even if only 
temporary, elevation in the curve of decline of 
the whalefishery. It is witha feeling of sorrow 
that one reads of the slaughter of four thousand 
sea elephants on Kerguelen Island. 
The articles published in the appendix are of 
both general and scientific interest. Several 
have a tropical flavor. The papers of Mr. W. 
A. Wilcox, Mr. C. H. Townsend and Mr. J. 
N. Cobb are mainly economic. Messrs. Ever- 
mann and Kendall have prepared an acceptable 
check list of the fishes of Florida. New genera 
and species of fishes from Porto Rico are de- 
scribed by Messrs.. Evermann and Marsh. Dr. 
Moore gives an interesting account of his ‘ In- 
quiry into the Feasibility of Introducing Useful 
Marine Animals into the Waters of Great Salt 
Lake,’ and Dr. Rathbun contributes ‘A Review 
of the Fisheries in the Contiguous Waters of the 
State of Washington and British Columbia.’ 
The scope of this paper is limited to the fishery 
questions of the region that are of international 
concern. Whilesuch papers have an immediate 
interest, their value really increases as time 
goes on, for they give a record of the more 
primitive biological conditions, without which 
it would be quite impossible in the future to de- 
termine the changes that have been wrought in 
the natural productiveness of a region by the 
occupancy of man. 
H. C. Bumpvus. 
Report on the International Cloud Observations. 
Prepared under direction of Wutuis L. 
Moore, Chief of Weather Bureau, by FRANK 
H. BIGELow, Professor of Meteorology. U. 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. XIII. No. 314. 
S. Department of Agriculture, Weather 
Bureau. Report of the Chief of the Weather 
Bureau for 1898-99. Vol. II. 4to. Wash- 
ington, D. C. 1900. Pp. 787. Charts 79. 
The Report on the International Cloud 
Observations, just published by the Weather 
Bureau, is one of the most detailed and 
elaborate studies of clouds that has yet been 
issued. Professor Bigelow, who has been in 
charge of the reduction of the observations, 
has not limited his investigations to the tabu- 
lation and simple discussion of the heights, 
velocities, and directions of movement of the 
different clouds, but has gone far into the ther- 
modynamic and hydrodynamic problems which 
grew out of his study of the cloud observations. 
As he himself says in his preface: ‘‘ In order to 
submit these results to a careful discussion, it has 
been necessary to prosecute a critical compara- 
tive study of several important theories hereto- 
fore proposed by meteorologists, so that com- 
parison between observations and theoretical 
computations can be suitably carried out. Ac- 
cordingly, a standard mathematical system has 
been constructed, including in a definite nota- 
tion the constants, the thermodynamic and the 
hydrodynamic formule pertaining to the atmos- 
pheric physical processes and motions, by means 
of which the work of the several authorities can 
be reduced to one set of typical equations. The 
theories of the American and German schools of 
meteorology have been contrasted, and the re- 
sults derived from them have been compared 
with the facts obtained from these cloud observa- 
tions.’’ This quotation may serve to give some 
idea as to the thoroughness with which Professor 
Bigelow has done his work. Indeed, the report 
is the most comprehensive and important of the 
Government meteorological publications of re- 
cent years. 
There are in all fourteen chapters, the first 
two of which relate to the methods of taking 
the observations, and of computing the heights, 
directions and velocities. Chapters 3 to 7 con- 
tain summaries of all the observations made 
with nephoscopes and theodolites, and the dis- 
cussions of these observations. The subjects 
treated in the last seven chapters are as follows: 
‘The Typical Local Circulations over the United 
States,’ ‘Diurnal Oscillations of the Barometric 
