674 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 643 



which we have made, will be found in a paper 

 published quite recently.' 



J. Bishop Tingle, 

 Ernest E. Gorsline 

 Johns Hopkins Univbbsity, 

 Baltimoeb, Md., 

 April, 1907 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY AND 

 CLIMATOLOGY 



VON BEZOLD, PAULSEN, RUSSELL 



Death has claimed three men whose work 

 in meteorology has made their names well 

 known the world over: von Bezold, Paulsen 

 and Russell. 



Wilhelm von Bezold died on February lY, 

 1907. Born in Munich in 1837; Ph.D. of 

 Gottingen; professor at Munich; organizer of 

 the Bavarian Meteorological Service; pro- 

 fessor of meteorology at Berlin; director of 

 the Prussian Meteorological Institute at Ber- 

 lin; his best-known and most important wri- 

 tings concerned meteorology as the physics of 

 the atmosphere. A collection of his contribu- 

 tions to meteorology was published in October, 

 1906, by Vieweg, of Braunschweig. 



Adam F. W. Paulsen (1833-1907) died at 

 Copenhagen on January 11. Physicist; di- 

 rector of the Danish Meteorological Institute; 

 active in organizing and supervising the ex- 

 tended meteorological work of that institute; 

 critical student of the aurora borealis and of 

 the meteorological conditions of Greenland; 

 established permanent telegraphic communi- 

 cation between Iceland and Europe for the 

 transmission of meteorological despatches; 

 member of the International Meteorological 

 Committee. 



H. C. Eussell died at Sydney, New South 

 Wales. Since 1870 government astronomer 

 and director of the Sydney Observatory; or- 

 ganizer of the New South Wales meteoro- 

 logical service; untiringly enthusiastic in in- 

 creasing the number of his observers and in 

 publishing the results of their work ; fellow of 

 the Eoyal Society. 



SOUNDING THE AIE OVER THE OCEANS 



The Prince of Monaco recently addressed 

 'Amer. Chem. Jour., 37: 483 (1907). 



the Scottish Geographical Society, on ' Meteor- 

 ological Eesearches in the High Atmosphere' 

 {Scot. Geogr. Mag., March, 1907), giving a 

 popular account of the work which he haa 

 carried on during the past three years in ex- 

 ploring the free air over the oceans by means 

 of kites, captive balloons, hallons-sondes and 

 pilot balloons. On his recent expedition to 

 Spitzbergen, the Prince reports that these pilot 

 balloons were followed by means of special 

 theodolites up to an altitude of 82,000 feet 

 at the very least. At the moment one par- 

 ticular balloon disappeared it was at a dis- 

 tance of 49J miles from the observers. The 

 pilot balloon ascents of 1906 showed that near 

 the 80th parallel north latitude, at a height of 

 13,600 meters, more or less, there are winds of 

 132 miles an hour, with a direction S. 68° W, 



RAINFALL AND THE SALTON SEA 



Professor A. J. Henry (Monthly Weather 

 Review, December, 1906) discusses briefly the,^ 

 at present, very pertinent question of the pos- 

 sible effects of the new Salton Sea on the 

 climate of the surrounding area. The ex- 

 cessive rainfalls of 1905, which have been 

 attributed to the influence of the Salton Sea,, 

 are shown to have had nothing to do with 

 that body of water. It is undoubtedly true 

 that the relative humidity in the immediate- 

 vicinity has been somewhat increased, but this- 

 does not mean that there must be an increase 

 in rainfall. 



CLIMATE OP VIRGINIA 



In a recent paper on ' Climate and Bounda- 

 ries of Virginia ' (Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc, 

 February, 1907) G. T. Surface gives a brief 

 account of the climatic features of the state, 

 subdividing into three provinces, tidewater; 

 middle piedmont; and Blue Ridge, valley and 

 Appalachia. The discussion is inadequate 

 so far as giving any very clear picture of the 

 actual conditions is concerned. A table of 

 mean annual temperature, rainfall and snow- 

 fall, and length of the growing season (1900- 

 1905) is given for ' representative ' stations. 

 We note that in the western districts " the 

 most successful growers plant their orchards 

 on the mountains, because the valleys are not 



