508 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 796 



better authority," should have perceived a 

 good many errors of omission and commission. 

 Not even in England do authorities now 

 maintain that Glaisher and Coxv^ell reached 

 the height of 7 miles, as stated on pages 31 and 

 160, so that the record of 34,400 feet belongs 

 to Berson and Siiring, in Germany, and the 

 balloon " Preussen," holding 300,000 cubic 

 feet of gas, in which they ascended, is much 

 larger than the French " Geant," said on page 

 33 to be the largest free balloon ever con- 

 structed. In the table of long balloon voy- 

 ages, the distance of 872 miles traveled by 

 Erbsloh and Clayton during the Gordon- 

 Bennett race from St. Louis in 1907 is ig- 

 nored, although shorter voyages in Europe 

 during the same year are enumerated. There 

 are inaccuracies also in the table of early 

 air-ships, for the speed of the first successful 

 dirigible balloon of Eenard and Krebs was 

 14 miles per hour and not 7J miles, and 

 Santos-Dumont won the Deutsch prize, by 

 circling the Eiffel Tower, in 1901, and not 

 in 1898. As regards the first mechanical 

 flights it is wrong to say on page 81 that the 

 flights of Farman and Delagrange in 1907-8 

 "were being eclipsed in America by the 

 Brothers Wright," when the latter had made 

 longer flights several years before. The 

 Malay kite (page 96) is not analogous to the 

 "finbat," since it has no plane projecting at 

 right angles from the middle. Hargrave's kite 

 is correctly described, as is rarely the case, in 

 having no continuous corner sticks which 

 were added by Clayton. The Wright aero- 

 plane does not start on a declined rail (page 

 153). Exceptions can be taken to some of 

 the meteorological conclusions, e. g., that the 

 seasonal and daily changes of temperature 

 are much less at an altitude of 5,000 feet than 

 at the ground, because the contrary has been 

 found by the Blue Hill observations. The 

 statement that an Englishman, Archibald, 

 first used kites to lift automatic registering 

 instruments, on page 158, apparently contra- 

 dicts one on page 94 that in 1894, for the first 

 time, automatic recording apparatus was sent 

 up on kites from Blue Hill. The last is cor- 

 rect, if instruments recording graphically and 



continuously, such as are now generally used 

 to obtain observations in the upper air, are 

 meant. Andree, on his ill-fated north-polar 

 voyage, had two companions, Frankel and 

 Strindberg, and not three, as said on page 196. 

 It can not be admitted that a projectile fired 

 vertically would fall back with the velocity 

 with which it left the gun, as is asserted on 

 page 213. If dirigible balloons are unable 

 to " tack," like sailing ships (page 226) this is 

 equally true of flying machines. The species 

 of wood suitable for constructing the latter 

 which are named on page 269, have a foreign 

 habitat and none equal the American spruce. 

 In the index, John Wise, the old-time balloon- 

 ist, is confounded with Lieutenant Wise, the 

 modern kite-experimenter. 



The aeronautical achievements are brought 

 down to August, 1909, after Bleriot's flight 

 across the Channel had brought home to Eng- 

 lishmen the possibility of aerial invasion, 

 which furnished the psychological moment for 

 publishing this book. A. Lawrence Eotch 



Blue Hill Meteokological Obseevatoey 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The March number (volume 16, number 6) 

 of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical 

 Society contains : Report of the annual meet- 

 ing of the society, by F. N. Cole; Report of 

 the winter meeting of the Chicago Section, 

 by H. E. Slaught; Report of the meeting of 

 the American Association, by G. A. Miller; 

 " Shorter notices " : Smith's Rara Arithmetica, 

 by L. L. Jackson; Fine and Thompson's Coor- 

 dinate Geometry, by E. B. Cowley; Boutroux's 

 Fonctions definees par les Equations differen- 

 tieUes du premier Ordre, by C. L. E. Moore; 

 Worms de Romilly's Premiers Prineipes des 

 Sciences mathematiques, by J. B. Shaw; 

 Auerbach's Tasehenbuch fiir Mathematiker 

 und Physiker, by J. B. Shaw; Laurent's 

 Statistique mathematique, by H. L. Rietz; 

 Duhem's Theorie physique de Platon a Gali- 

 lee, by E. B. Wilson; Clark's Slide Rule, by 

 F. Cajori; Annuaire du Bureau des Longi- 

 tudes pour I'An 1910, by E. W. Brown. 

 "Notes on the Institut de France and the 

 annual meeting of the Academie des Sci- 



