922 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 78. 



waters that produce a broader counter cur- 

 rent north than south of the equator in the 

 Indian ocean, that limit the south counter 

 of the Pacific to the western part of that 

 ocean, and that exclude a south counter 

 current entirely from the Atlantic. 



W. M. Davis. 



HAEVAED UsriVBESITY. 



CUBBENT NOTES ON METEOBOLOGY. 

 THE CLIMATOLOGY OF MAEYLAND. 



A SECOND edition of the Climatology of 

 Maryland, originally published in 1894, 

 has been issued as the Second Biennial Re- 

 port of the Maryland State Weather Service. 

 The data used in this compilation are the 

 observations of the years 1892 to 1895, in- 

 clusive, and five charts accompanj^ the re- 

 port, showing the mean seasonal and mean 

 annual precipitation and temperature. The 

 Maryland Weather Service, organized in 

 1891, under the joint auspices of the Johns 

 Hopkins University, the Maryland Agri- 

 cultural College and the U. S. Weather 

 Bureau — a very happy combination of ele- 

 ments — deserves great credit for the work 

 it is doing for meteorology in the United 

 States. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN SCHOOLS. 



The Connecticut State Board of Educa- 

 tion has issued a pamphlet on Meteorological 

 Observations in Schools (Conn. School Doc. 

 No. 10, 1896), which is intended to serve as 

 an outhne for the use of teachers who wish 

 to give their scholars some practice in tak- 

 ing systematic meteorological observations 

 of the simplest character. The time has 

 come when some beginning in the teaching 

 of meteorology in our schools should be 

 made, and in order that such instruction 

 may be systematic, and may serve as a 

 basis for more advanced work in the later 

 school years, an outline such as the present 

 one is necessary. Teachers who are giving 

 any attention to meteorology will find the 

 pamphlet useful. 



OTHER NOTEWORTHY PUBLICATIONS. 



The following recent publications are 

 worthy of note : 



H. C. Russell : A Map Showing the 

 Average Monthly Rainfall in Neiv South Wales. 

 (Read before the Eoyal Society of ISTew 

 South Wales, November 7, 1894.) The 

 map shows, for each square degree of the 

 Colony, the mean rainfall for every month. 



SiJRiNG UND Bbrson : Die XV. Fahrt des 

 Ballons ' Phonix ' am 1 July, 189Jf. (Zeitschr. 

 f. Luftschifiahrt, February-March, 1896, 

 29-53.) An account of a balloon ascent to 

 an altitude of 17,226 feet. Full meteor- 

 ological observations were taken. 



E. De C. Ward. 



Haevabd University. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 ASTRONOMY. 



The Sasou Academy has recently published^ 

 a paper by Dr. Bruno Peter, containing the 

 results of his observations with the new Rep- 

 sold heliometer of the Leipzig observatory. 

 The paper contains an extensive investigation 

 of the instrument and a determination of the 

 parallaxes of three stars whose parallaxes had 

 not previously been measured. The most in- 

 teresting thing brought out in the investigation 

 of the instrument is an experimental verifica- 

 tion of the possibility of eliminating entirely 

 the effects of a varying focal adjustment of the 

 eye-piece by the use of certain peculiarly shaped 

 diaphragTiis in front of the object glass. That 

 this is possible had been previously suggested 

 from theoretical considerations by Dr. Abbe, of 

 Jena. The only point in which Dr. Peter's 

 method of observation differs materially from 

 that usually employed is in the determination 

 of the error of runs separately for each obser- 

 vation, instead of employing a constant value 

 for the night. 



The parallax observations have been effected 

 very nearly according to the program used by 

 Gill. The results obtained are as follo\Vs : 

 Parallax. 

 Bradley 3077, +0'M3 ±0".012 



Arg.-Oeltz. 10603, +0".17 ±0".013 . 

 31 Aquilfe, +0".06 ±0''.015 



