756 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 384. 



THE PROPER NAME OF THE ATLANTIC BOTTLENOSE 

 WHALE.' 



The binomial long applied to the 'bottle- 

 nose' of the Atlantic Ocean and currently 

 accepted by modern authors is Hyperoodon 

 rostratus (Muller), described and named 

 Balcena rostrata by him in 1776 in the 'Zool. 

 Dan. Prodr.,' p. 7. This appears to be 

 antedated six years by Balcena ampullata, a 

 name proposed for the same animal by John 

 Eeinhold Forster in the 'Linnsean Tra\'els' 

 [Kalm], 1770, Vol. 1, p. 18, footnote. In this 

 Forster criticizes Kalm for calling the 'bottle- 

 nose' a dolphin, because 'it has no teeth in its 

 mouth as all the fish of that class have.' He 

 then refers to "Mr. Pennant's 'British Zool- 

 ogy,' Vol. 3, p. 43, where it is called the 

 beaked whale and very well described," adding, 

 "a drawing is seen in the explanatory table, 

 n. 1. Perhaps it would not be improper to call 

 it Balcena ampullata F." In the 1812 edition 

 of Pennant's 'British Zoology,' Vol. 3, p. 85, 

 this 'beaked whale' or 'bottle head' is properly 

 classed under Lacepede's genus Hyperoodon. 

 From the foregoing I conclude the proper 

 name of this whale to be Hyperoodon ampiil- 

 latus (Forster). Samuel IST. Ehoads. 



AuDTJBOisr, N. J., 

 March 19, 1902. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



LOSS OF LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES BY 

 LIGHTNING. 



The "Weather Bureau has, since 1890, con- 

 ducted a statistical inquiry into the number 

 of deaths and of injuries caused by lightning 

 in the United States. This work has been 

 carried on up to the close of 1900, when it 

 was discontinued. During the year 1900, 713 

 persons were killed by, or received fatal in- 

 juries through, lightning. Of this number 

 291 persons were killed in the open, 158 in 

 houses, 57 under trees, and 56 in barns. The 

 circumstances attending the deaths of the re- 

 maining 151 are not known. During the same 

 jear 973 persons were more or less injured by 

 lightning strokes. On the average, it is prob- 

 able that from 700 to 800 lives are lost each 

 year by lightning in the United States. 

 Tabulating the average mortality resulting 



from lightning according to geographic dis- 

 tricts subject to the same, or nearly the 

 same, atmospheric conditions, it appears that 

 the greatest number of fatal cases occurred 

 in the Middle Atlantic States; the next 

 greatest in the Ohio Valley and Tennessee, 

 with the middle and upper Mississippi Valley 

 a close third. The greatest number of deaths 

 in any single state during the five years 1896- 

 1900 occurred in Pennsylvania (186), fol- 

 lowed by Ohio with 135, and Indiana, Illi- 

 nois and New York with 124 each. 



In the Gulf States the average number of 

 deaths due to lightning per unit area (10,000 

 square miles) is 1. In New England, with 

 probably half as many thunderstorms, the death 

 rate per unit area is 2. In the latter district 

 the death rate per million of rural inhabitants 

 is nearly double that per million of total 

 population, and the same holds true of the 

 densely populated districts of the Middle 

 Atlantic States. Considering both unit area 

 and density of population, the greatest mor- 

 tality by lightning is in the Ohio Valley and 

 the Middle Atlantic States. If, however, the 

 density of population alone be considered, it 

 is in the upper Missouri valley and the 

 middle Rocky Mountain region. 



The foregoing facts are taken from Bulle- 

 tin 30, of the Weather Bureau ('Loss of Life 

 in the United States by Lightning,' by A. J. 

 Henry), in which will be found further inter- 

 esting information, as well as a chart — the 

 first of its kind for this country — showing the 

 geographic distribution of deaths by lightning 

 in the United States. 



TEJIPERATURE, rainfall and SUN-SPOTS IN 

 JAMAICA. 



Maxwell Hall returns to the subject of 

 the relation between sun-spots, temperature 

 and rainfall in a recent paper entitled 'Tem- 

 peratures in Kingston, Jamaica, and the Con- 

 nection between Sun-Spot Frequency, the 

 Mean Maximum Temperature, and the Eain- 

 fall in Jamaica' (Kingston, 1902, 12 pp.). 

 Using the observations of 1881-1898, inclusive, 

 and taking the mean maximum temperatures 

 of any three years as the mean of'the middle 

 year, the plotted curve of mean maximum 



