74 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 576. 



into the terms of the metric countries to which 

 they are shipped. 



One may imagine the time and labor lost in 

 these processes and the tendency to prevent 

 expansion of our commerce that these vexa- 

 tions must exert, for where other things are 

 equal the four hundred and fifty millions of 

 metric potential customers naturally incline to 

 deal with those who speak the same trade lan- 

 guage as themselves. The views of exporters 

 and importers recently presented through the 

 Herald show how keenly they feel this handi- 

 cap and how eager they are for the adoption of 

 the simple, uniform and widely used system 

 which would clear the existing obstructions 

 from the pathway of commerce. 



If we had no commercial relations whatever 

 with foreign countries it would seem incon- 

 gruous that the American people, while pro- 

 gressing in all other directions, should have 

 failed to adopt such a unified and simple sys- 

 tem as the metric for the facilitation of in- 

 ternal trade — and this is nearly twenty times 

 as large as that done with other countries. 

 The first step toward adopting the metric sys- 

 tem was taken forty years ago, when Congress 

 passed the law legalizing it in contracts and 

 court pleadings. Six years after that step 

 was taken Germany adopted the inetric system 

 — and it has contributed not a little to the 

 industrial and commercial growth at which 

 the world mai-vels — while we are still weighing 

 copper by one ' standard,' silver by another and 

 drugs by a third, with other confusions ' too 

 numerous to mention '_ in naeasures of volume 

 and length. 



We have been outstripped in the adoption 

 of the metric system by Japan and by coun- 

 tries that the average American condescend- 

 ingly regards as half civilized. The metric is 

 taught in our schools, but the children must 

 also learn the complicated systems that are 

 retained in use, although a full year's time 

 would be saved in their education if these were 

 dropped. In electrical operations, in engi- 

 neering, in pharmacy, in industries that de- 

 mand nice measurements, like the manufac- 

 ture of automobiles, and watchmaking, and in 

 numerous other fields the metric system is in 

 common use to-day. Why longer continue the 



confusion and the loss of time and labor and 

 accuracy involved in retaining the obsolete 

 weights and measures? Congress should 

 awaken to the fact that this is the twentieth 

 century and comply with the demand for 

 adoption of the metric system. 



OVRRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



METEOROLOGY AT THE EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL 



GEOGRAPHIC CONGRESS. 



The Eighth International Geographic Con- 

 gress was held in the United States in Sep- 

 tember, 1904, and the Report has just been 

 published, ' by courtesy of the United States 

 Congress at the Government Printing Office.' 

 The number of papers devoted to meteoro- 

 logical and elimatological subjects was not 

 large, but the matters treated in these papers 

 were of some general interest. Dr. Cleveland 

 Abbe, Jr., in his ' Meteorological Summary 

 for Agafia, Island of Guam, for 1902,' presents 

 a discussion, along approved lines, of the data 

 collected during one year at Guam, and while 

 the period is very short, the tropical condi- 

 tions of the island make a long series of ob- 

 servations much less necessary than is the 

 case in a higher latitude. Professor A. J. 

 Henry,, of the Weather Bureau, in an account 

 of ' A elimatological Dictionary of the United 

 States,' calls attention to the summary of the 

 elimatological work that has been done in this 

 country which is now in preparation by the 

 Weather Bureau. The first chapter of the 

 new volume, which is really a census of the 

 climatology of the United States, will treat of 

 the broader features of climate, and the re- 

 maining chapters will deal with the climates 

 of the several states and territories. The 

 records of about 600 stations will be used. 

 The ' Scientific Work of Mount Weather 

 Meteorological Research Observatory ' is con- 

 sidered by Professor F. H. Bigelow; who states 

 that the Weather Bureau is ' looking to the 

 future needs of a rapidly developing and in- 

 tensely interesting branch of science ' and is 

 ' trying to build the very best observatory pos- 

 sible.' Frequent mention of the Mount 

 Weather Observatory has been made in these 



