810 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 74. 



low considers the ' coronal ' field to be a stream 

 of energy. If such is the case it is of course 

 not a magnetic field, but he surely so considers 

 it and has determined its strength C. G. S! as 

 he has also determined the strength of the 

 ' Kadiant ' field and of the ' Orbital ' field! 



Forgetting the essential character of his cor- 

 ona Prof. Bigelow, in a recent paper,* ' adopt- 

 ing J. J. Thomson's language,' scrambles 

 wildly after a conception of the sun's corona as a 

 stream of matter. 



"It should be noticed that there may be found in 

 this polar radiation the true cause of the great changes 

 of temperature in the polar regions, known in the 

 glacial epoch. "t "It is hoped that the develop- 

 ments of the case may not lead to any permanent 

 difficulties that cannot be overcome, for the following 

 reason: In a final analysis it appears that all these 

 phenomena are to be referred to Newton's Law." J 



The passages here quoted from Prof. Bige- 

 low' s papers do not suffer by extraction from 

 the context. Very few passages are specific 

 enough to be quoted to any purpose whatever, 

 and it is this fact which has governed the pres- 

 ent choice. The paragraph referring to ' a dia- 

 gram of magnetic centers,' page 523 of the Re- 

 port for 1881-2 of the Chief of the United States 

 Weather Bureau, is a fair sample of the in- 

 volved vacancy of Prof. Bigelow's style. Yet 

 curiously enough, being entirely devoid of con- 

 ceptions, it at first strikes one merely as some- 

 thing one does not understand. 



" In two papers ? already published, a brief state- 

 ment has been presented of the lines of evidence that 

 tend to prove the following facts: 1. That the sun 

 emits two distinct types of radiant energy into the 

 space outside of its surface. 2. That the first is propa- 

 gated radially in all directions, the part falling upon 

 the earth, especially on its equatorial belt, being an 

 electro-magnetic wave, whose electro-motive force 



by the law of the conservation of energy, breaks up 

 into the dynamic wave 



{(Xu^ Yv + Zw)dT,\\ 



* See Am. Jour. Sci., 3, 50, p. 83. 

 t Astron. and Astro- Phys., 13, p. 39. 

 t Bulletin No. 2, U. S. Weather Bureau, p. 9. 

 § American Meteorological Journal, Sept., 1893, 

 Astron. and Astro-Phys., Oct., 1893 (Prof. Bigelow's 

 Eeference). 



II No reference whatever to the significance of the 

 symbols nor to the source of the expressions. 



/(• 



tlF , dG , dS 



-3r+^-37-+'"'^,7- 



partly inductive and partly magnetic in its instanta- 

 neous state, plus the static or potential stress. 



rl dip , dip , di>\, 



jy'di+''di+'"d.r 



plus the irreversible energy of Joules' {sic. ) heat 



/ 



C 



The mathematical discussion in this paper 

 (Astron. and Astro-Phys. 13, p. 26) begins and 

 ends with this quotation. It is in no way a con- 

 clusion to anything gone before, nor the begin- 

 ning of anything to be finished afterwards. As 

 to what it really is, the writer's opinion is al- 

 ready sufiiciently expressed. Those who can 

 recognize the bricks in it will have no difiiculty 

 in judging for themselves. A passage of the 

 same character occurs pp. 95-96, Vol. 50, Am. 

 Jour. Sci. : 



" The real order of events in Nature may, however, 

 be summarized as follows : The Equatorial Field 

 generates a tropical high pressure, and a sub-polar low 

 pressure belt, by its distribution of temperature. The 

 continents rearrange these belts so that in winter the 

 small polar circuit surrounding the Icelandic perma- 

 nent low supersedes and predominates, while in 

 summer the great midlatitude circuit regains its su- 

 premacy. Therefore in winter the circulation of the 

 polar circuit is more rapid ; being smaller in diam- 

 eter, the supply comes across the North American 

 polar regions, and but little from the Pacific ; in 

 summer the slower eastward march in the wider 

 circuit sets in, with the supply from the Pacific. In 

 both cases the movement of the air masses is dom- 

 inated by the varying intensities of the polar mag- 

 netic field from the sun, by which the densities of the 

 contents of the unit volume is changed. High pres- 

 sure areas are the primary products of these sources of 

 energy, being in part whirled up by the general cir- 

 culation, and in part the result of reducing the polar 

 absorption by diminution of the cosmical energy on 

 certain dates, t 



This is not so distinctly articulate nonsense, 

 by far, as are the more theoretical parts of 

 Prof. Bigelow's papers, for there is such a thing 



*Astron. and Astro-Phys. 13, p. 26. 

 tAm. Jour. Sci., 348, p. 449. 



