674 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 591. 



Allowing for the difference of level of 61 

 meters, the observations indicate a decidedly 

 lower temperature and a much higher wind 

 velocity on Mount Washington than are found 

 in the free air. The hygrometers had not 

 been tested below 40 per cent, and the com- 

 parison of humidities, while indicating a 

 lower humidity on the mountain, is not con- 

 sidered trustworthy. 



Unusually clear, fine weather prevailed 

 throughout the time that could be devoted to 

 the experiments and the summits of the moun- 

 tains were seldom hidden by clouds. On two 

 successive days (August 25 and 26) the aver- 

 age wind velocity on Mount Washington was 

 less than three meters per second, and on sev- 

 eral other days it was almost as low. The 

 conditions for kite flying may not be more 

 difficult near mountains than in other places, 

 but the consequences of accidents to the kites, 

 and the fall of the line and apparatus into 

 the dense forests in these regions, demand that 

 unusual precautions be taken to avoid mis- 

 haps. A small gasolene motor for quick 

 manipulation of the line during periods of 

 light wind is almost a necessity. 



These experiments have also demonstrated 

 the great value of a simple and compact 

 meteorograph in obtaining data at a place 

 like Mount Washington. The time required 

 for changing the records of the instrument 

 employed was about five minutes, or less, each 

 day, the construction of the recording mech- 

 anism of the anemometer being such that 

 this operation could be performed at any time 

 convenient to the observer, or even omitted 

 for a day without loss of records by superim- 

 posing. After the meteorograph was installed, 

 on August 20, continuous records of the four 

 elements already referred to were maintained 

 until the close of the season on the summit. It 

 was not practicable to record the direction of 

 the wind on this meteorograph except by means 

 of a device indicating only the eight principal 

 directions ; and while such approximate data 

 are useful in studies of climate they are of 

 small value in other meteorological researches. 

 If circumstances favor, this work will be 

 continued during at least three weeks of the 



summer of 1906, and, it is hoped, more 

 definite results will be obtained than those de- 

 scribed in this preliminary study. 



I am indebted to Mr. H. H. Clayton for the 

 use of four Blue Hill box kites ; to the staff of 

 Among the Clouds, Messrs. Burt, Dunham, 

 Libby and Duff, for their assistance in caring 

 for the meteorograph on Mount Washington, 

 without which these experiments could not 

 easily have been made; to Mr. D. J. Flanders, 

 of the Boston and Maine Railroad, for trans- 

 portation over the Mount Washington Hallway 

 for the purpose of installing the meteorograph 

 on the summit; to the foreman at the Hose- 

 brook Inn, and to Mr. Anderson, of the 

 American Museum of Natural History, for 

 valuable assistance in the kite flights. 



S. P. Fergusson. 



Hyde Pabk, Mass., 

 February 25, 1906. 



QUOTATIONS. 



THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITIES. 



The amended report of the condition in 

 which Leland Stanford, Junior, University is 

 left by the earthquake is most comforting. 

 But if the flrst statement that its buildings 

 had all been reduced to heaps of dust had 

 proved true the university would not have 

 been, as the headlines had it, ' wiped out.' A 

 university does not exist in its material part. 

 The plant is, in fact, the least part of it. 

 Perhaps it would have been worth the sacrifice 

 of the beautiful Boston-planned architecture 

 of Leland Stanford, Junior, University rep- 

 resenting Hispano-Mexican history and the 

 semi-tropical local color of California as 

 vividly as the architecture of Harvard and 

 Yale represent the associations of old New 

 England with Cambridge and Oxford univer- 

 sities, if the impressive object-lesson had been 

 conveyed to our ' splendid materialism,' that 

 the buildings, though they may represent many 

 millions and that in irreproachable good taste, 

 too, do not make and can never make the uni- 

 versity. The Leland Stanford Junior Uni- 

 versity is what it is not by grace of Leland 

 Stanford's money, but by virtue of certain 

 great and fearless minds, with their unwaver- 



