June 29, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



975 



progress and advancement made in physics, 

 Dr. Johnson refei-red to the semi-jubilee 

 celebration of the Royal Society. A 

 public and popular evening lecture, one of 

 the features of the society meetings, was 

 delivered on the following evening, by 

 Professor C. C. James, of Toronto, on the 

 subject, 'The Downfall of the Huron Na- 

 tion. ' The lecture was illustrated through- 

 out with numerous views projected on the 

 screen. 



Some interesting functions were held— 

 notably a dinner at the Russell House, 

 Ottawa, and a reception and garden party 

 at the observatory, where the public and 

 the society had an excellent opportunity of 

 visiting the beautiful building recently 

 erected by the Canadian government, in 

 charge of the Dominion astronomer, Dr. 

 W. F. King. 



H. M. Ami. 



Ottawa, May 31, 1906. 



THE INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL 

 CONFERENCE AT INNSBRUCK. 



Although several months have elapsed 

 since this meeting, the fact that no account 

 of it has appeared in America prompts the 

 writer, who was the English-speaking sec- 

 retary, to give a brief statement of its 

 nature and proceedings. 



The directors of the various meteorolog- 

 ical services and observatories of the world, 

 to the number of fifty, met last September 

 at Innsbruck, Austria, for the purpose of 

 discussing questions of common interest, 

 but without authority to pledge their re- 

 spective governments to any action. 



The chief of the United States Weather 

 Bureau and Professor Bigelow were un- 

 able to attend, and, in their absence, 

 Father Algue, of Manila, and the under- 

 signed represented the United States. 

 Similar conferences had been held at 

 Munich in 1891 and at Paris in 1896, but 

 the meeting there during the exposition of 



1900 was open to all meteorologists. These 

 reunions are arranged by the International 

 Meteorological Committee, a permanent 

 organization, composed of seventeen per- 

 sons, who are generally the heads of meteor- 

 ological services in their respective coun- 

 tries. At the present time the president 

 of the committee is M. Mascart, director 

 of the Central Meteorological Bureau of 

 France, and the secretary is Professor 

 Hildebrandsson, director of the meteorolog- 

 ical observatory at Upsala. The members 

 are chosen at meetings of the directore, 

 and although vacancies or resignations 

 may be filled by the committee itself, the 

 fact that the committee had been in office 

 during nine years made it advisable to con- 

 voke this meeting of directors in order to 

 elect a new committee. Since 1896 the 

 permanent committee has met three times 

 and has received the reports of four sub- 

 committees, appointed mostly from outside 

 its own body to further special investiga- 

 tions. 



The conference at Innsbruck was or- 

 ganized by choosing Professor Hann, of 

 Vienna, its honorary president, and Pro- 

 fessor Pernter, also of Vienna, its presi- 

 dent, in place of M. Mascart, who was 

 prevented from coming to Innsbruck. 

 Professor Hildebrandsson, of Upsala, and 

 General Rykatchef, of St. Petersburg, were 

 elected vice-presidents. In his opening 

 address Professor Hann reviewed the great 

 progress which meteorology had made since 

 the first conference at Leipzig in 1872, 

 chiefly through the exploration of the upper 

 air, which, by the erection of mountain 

 observatories, and especially through the 

 use of kites and balloons during the last 

 decade, has led to new and unexpected re- 

 sults. At the present time meteorology is 

 facing such important problems as the con- 

 nection between weather periods of long 

 duration and solar conditions, a considera- 



