832 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 



been issued by the United States Weather 

 Bureau. It bears the names of William J. 

 Humphreys, director, and William E. Blair, 

 assistant director, and is prepared under the 

 direction of the chief of the Weather Bureau 

 (Washing-ton, 1908). In the announcement, 

 signed by the Secretary of Agriculture, it is 

 stated that the Bulletin, of which this is the 

 first number, will contain more or less de- 

 tailed accounts of the researches conducted at 

 Mount Weather. The Bulletin will appear 

 quarterly. The chief of the Weather Bureau 

 discusses briefly " The Origin and the Pur- 

 pose of the Mount Weather Observatory," 

 the last sentence being as follows : " The whole 

 aim of the observatory is the discovery, no 

 matter how nor by whom, of fundamental 

 truths of nature, and of their application to 

 human welfare." Dr. W. E. Blair considers 

 " The Methods and Apparatus used in Ob- 

 taining Upper Air Observations at Mount 

 Weather, Va.," which includes the results of 

 the kite flights during June-September, 1907. 

 Professor A. J. Henry concludes with a paper 

 on " The Use of Upper Air Data in Weather 

 Forecasting." The Bulletin is illustrated by 

 means of several half-tone views of the kite 

 equipment. There are also diagrams showing 

 the upper air isotherms as determined on dif- 

 ferent kite flights. This number of the Bul- 

 letin directs attention, in a striking way, to 

 the work which the Weather Bureau has 

 undertaken at Mount Weather. 



EVAPORATION IN THE SALTON SINK 



To the National Geographic Magazin-e for 

 January, 1908, Professor P. H. Bigelow con- 

 tributes '.some " Studies on the Eate of 

 Evaporation at Eeno, Nevada, and in the 

 Salton Sink." Professor Bigelow has been in 

 charge of the Weather Bureau work on 

 evaporation in the southwest, and his pre- 

 liminary results are full of interest. He 

 states that, although it has been quite gen- 

 erally supposed that as much as eight feet of 

 water will evaporate from the Salton Sea 

 each year, there are now reasons to think 

 that the evaporation may not be more than 

 four or five feet. A temporary experiment 



station was set up at Reno, Nev., where five 

 towers were built by August 1, 1907, and 

 regular observations were continued until 

 September 15. By that time 100,000 readings 

 of the instruments had beei) made. It became 

 clear that the reservoir at Eeno, which is 

 about 1,000 feet long, covers itself with a 

 sheet of invisible vapor about 30 feet thick, 

 and this vapor acts like a blanket upon fresh 

 evaporation rising from the water. It is pro- 

 posed to erect two or three towers at the 

 Salton Sea in order to get some idea of the 

 behavior of the vapor sheet lying over that 

 body of water. 



TROPICAL TEMPERATURES 



The continuation and conclusion of Hann's 

 investigation entitled " Der tagliche Gang der 

 Temperatur in der ausseren Tropenzone " ap- 

 pears in Vol. LXXXI. of the Denhschr. Wien. 

 AJcad. Wiss., math.-naturwiss. Kl. (1907). 

 The object of this laborious study, so char- 

 acteristic of the tireless energy and unfailing 

 accuracy which has distinguished all the work 

 of the author, is to obtain, for the tropics, the 

 values needed in order to reduce temperature 

 observations made at different hours to the 

 twenty-four-hour mean. It appears that 

 means based on the daily extremes are quite 

 inaccurate. Hann has, in this second part of 

 his investigation, extended his study to the 

 Indian and Australian tropical region. 



FROST IN CALIFORNIA 



Professor A. G. McAdie has prepared a 

 short and useful paper entitled " Protection 

 of Fruits and Vegetables in California from 

 Injury by Frost," in which he summarizes the 

 various methods of protection against frost 

 in California, already treated at length in 

 previous publications of the Weather Bureau. 

 The daily weather map for December 21, 1907, 

 is reproduced as illustrating the type pressure 

 conditions upon which frosts are found to 

 occur in California. E. DeC. Ward 



BOTANICAL NOTES 



FUNGUS NOTES 



In a recent number of Bhodora, (January, 

 1908) Dr. W. G. Farlow begins the publica- 



