July 27, 190G.] 



SCIENCE. 



115 



and may be regarded as one of the best ex- 

 pressions of the spirit of the recent reform 

 movement in mathematical instruction. 



Q. A, Miller. 

 Stanford Univeesity, Calefoenia. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 THE ST. LOUIS CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 



At the regular meeting of the society on 

 Monday, June 11, Mr. W. R. Lamar presented 

 a paper entitled ' Recent Investigations on the 

 Constitution of Certain Alkaloids.' After a 

 few preliminary remarks on the difficulties 

 encountered in determining the molecular con- 

 stitution of these substances and on the meth- 

 ods employed for the purpose, the paper was 

 devoted to four substances : namely, conine, 

 nicotine, atropine and cocaine. The society 

 was treated to an exceedingly comprehensive 

 and condensed account of the investigations 

 into the constitution of each of these bodies, 

 indicating the failures as well as the partial 

 and complete successes. This was followed in 

 the ease of each substance by a similar account 

 of the efforts at producing the same substances 

 synthetically. C. J. Borgmeyer, 



Corresponding Secretary. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



the hailstorm of JUNE 23. 



To THE Editor of Science: During the 

 storm which swept the Atlantic coast on Sat- 

 urday, June 23, the hailstones which fell at 

 Perth Amboy, N. J., and vicinity were of such 

 large size that the following observations from 

 a house on the shore of Earitan Bay may be 

 worth recording. The hailstorm was preceded 

 by the piling up of great masses of cumulus 

 clouds, while out in the Lower Bay a tornado 

 caused a waterspout ; there was also consid- 

 erable lightning and a brief heavy shower of 

 rain, so that the usual conditions for a severe 

 hailstorm were satisfied. About four o'clock 

 big hailstones began to bombard the house, at 

 first few in number and in a very slanting 

 direction, then in a roaring downpour that 

 made the bay spout up into thousands of 

 white geysers. This lasted, perhaps, five 

 minutes. 



We immediately gathered some of the hail- 



stones which thickly dotted the lawn. They 

 ranged from the size of a cherry to that of a 

 duck's egg, the larger ones being very abun- 

 dant. The smaller ones were more or less 

 spherical, consisting internally of broad con- 

 centric zones of softer, more snow-like, and 

 of harder, darker ice, the broken surfaces re- 

 minding one of polished sections of concre- 

 tionary nodules of agate. The larger ones 

 were oblate spheroids, oval in contour, with 

 crater-like depressions in the center of each 

 flattened side. The largest ones filled the 

 palm of the hand, and upon being measured 

 with great care proved to be not less than 

 three and one eighth inches along the long 

 diameter and eight inches in circumference. 

 The surface was irregularly tuberculated, and 

 the center, core or axis of the spheroid was 

 always distinct, appearing in broken hailstones 

 as a small white spot. None were observed in 

 which the nuclei were formed of small pebbles. 

 The hailstones seemed harder to crack in the 

 teeth than ordinary ice. 



The impact of their fall caused circular 

 depressions in the hard-packed tennis court, 

 and later on the soft sand of the beach the 

 still unmelted kernel of each hailstone was 

 found in a depression containing a close coil 

 or many concentric circles of sand. 



Mr. George H. Pepper, of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, who also ob- 

 served the same storm in Tottenville, at the 

 southern end of Staten Island, appends the 

 following notes : 



The first evidence of the storm in Totten- 

 ville was a heavy rain accompanied by a 

 shower of small hailstones about the size of a 

 pea; these stones were similar to snow ice. 

 The rain continued and after an interval of 

 perhaps five minutes a second shower of hail- 

 stones was noticed; these ranged from the 

 size of hickory nuts to walnuts. The fall of 

 these stones was followed by the larger ones, 

 the inteiwals being, perhaps, two or three 

 minutes. The shower carrying the large hail- 

 stones lasted not more than three minutes, but 

 during that time twenty-five glasses were 

 broken in the house in which I happened to 

 be. Over fifty glasses in memorial windows 



