114 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 629 



John A. Parkhurst, in a volume issued 

 through the Carnegie Institution, This con- 

 tains the results of observations by the author, 

 during twelve years, of twelve variable stars 

 of long period, and includes photometric de- 

 terminations of the magnitudes of the com- 

 parison stars, measures of the light of the 

 variables, and detailed and mean light-curves. 

 Many of the recent measures were made with 

 the forty-inch refractor, and are invaluable, 

 since they furnish our only information in 

 regard to the minima of some variables of 

 large range. 



Excellent photographic charts of the regions 

 of the variables are given. It is unfortunate, 

 however, that astronomers are not in agree- 

 ment in regard to the scales of star charts. 

 For terrestrial maps definite scales are gen- 

 erally employed. For astronomical charts a 

 scale of one minute to the millimeter seems 

 to be a natural one, with simple multiples and 

 divisors of this scale, when necessary. This 

 subject might be referred to a national or 

 international committee. 



S. I. Bailey 



Haevakd College Obseevatoet 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY 



CLIMATE AND CLIMATIC CHANGES IN KASHMIR 



Ellsworth Huntington, whose work on 

 Turkestan as a member of the Pumpelly Ex- 

 pedition of a few years ago is already well 

 known, and who has more recently been en- 

 gaged in further exploration of Central Asia, 

 notably of Chinese Turkestan, contributes to 

 the Bulletin of the American Geographical 

 Society for November, 1906, an account of his 

 studies in the Vale of Kashmir in 1905. The 

 climate is described as warm and damp from 

 June to August, though but little rain falls; 

 mild and delightful in April, May, September 

 and October; and cold and snowy in winter, 

 when ' bracing ' is not infrequently less true 

 to the actual conditions than ' rigorous.' Of 

 late years there has been an increasing influx 

 of English summer visitors from India, who 

 seek relief from the heat of India in the 

 cooler and more favorable climate of the Vale 

 of Kashmir. A study of the physiographic 

 features of the region, especially of the river 



terraces, as well as of the human history, leads 

 to the conclusion that there has been a transi- 

 tion from colder or damper climatic condi- 

 tions two thousand years or more ago to 

 warmer or drier conditions to-day. This 

 transition appears to Huntington to be part 

 of a wide-spread climatic change extending at 

 least from Persia and the Caspian Sea on the 

 west to the borders of China proper three 

 thousand miles away on the east. 



MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW 



No. 9, Vol. XXXIV., of the Monthly 

 Weather Review, contains the following 

 articles of general interest : ' The Eelation of 

 the Weather to the Flow of Streams.' In this 

 paper F. H. Brandenburg, District Forecaster 

 at Denver, shows how many factors, meteoro- 

 logical and physical, control the run-ofi of 

 streams. A 'Phenomenal Eainfall at Guinea, 

 Va.,' on August 24 last, is reported by E. A. 

 Evans, Section Director at Eichmond, Va., to 

 have yielded nine and a quarter inches in 

 about thirty minutes. Professor Arthur 

 Searle, of the Harvard Observatory, con- 

 tributes a paper on ' The Zodiacal Light,' in 

 commenting on which Professor Cleveland 

 Abbe says editorially : " As this article by 

 Professor Searle definitely settles the old ques- 

 tion as to whether the zodiacal light and 

 Gegenschein are atmospheric or celestial phe- 

 nomena, we shall hereafter commend the pub- 

 lication of such material to the astronomical 

 journals, and reserve the columns of the 

 Monthly Weather Review for meteorology 

 proper." ' The Direction of Local Winds as 

 affected by Contiguous Areas of Land and 

 Water,' by T. H. Davis. 'The West Indian 

 Hurricanes of September, 1906,' by Professor 

 E. B. Garriott. The development of hurri- 

 canes in this month was exceptionally active, 

 a fact which the writer attributes, in part at 

 least, to an unusually strong flow of air from 

 the more northern latitudes toward the 

 tropics. One of these storms, it will be re- 

 membered, caused serious damage at Pensa- 

 cola and at Mobile. 



A DISAPPEARING LAKE 



Additional evidence regarding the desicca- 

 tion of Lake Chad, in central Africa, is 



