776 



SCIENCE 



[N. s. Vol. XXXII. No. 831 



and this seems to be a good opportunity to 

 make some remarks regarding the progress 

 of meteorology in the past twenty years, 

 and some comments on the present status 

 of the problems connecting the atmospheres 

 of the sun and the earth. While an assist- 

 ant in the National Observatory, Cordoba, 

 Argentine Republic, the Director, Dr. B. 

 A. Gould, who established the Meteorolog- 

 ical Office as well as the Astronomical Ob- 

 servatory in that country, was wont to say 

 that he felt confident that the weather 

 changes as observed synchronized closely 

 with the variations in the numbers of the 

 sun spots. It has since then been shown 

 that Cordoba is peculiarly well situated 

 in the midst of the high pressure belt of 

 the southern hemisphere, to bring out this 

 parallelism, because of its freedom from 

 local cyclonic disturbances. Many re- 

 searches, such as those by Balfour Stewart, 

 Bruckner, and others, along this line, indi- 

 cated that such synchronism was real, but 

 that the details of the phenomena are ex- 

 ceedingly complicated. Indeed, the funda- 

 mental question is, whether the weather 

 variations in the earth's atmosphere admit 

 of a further classification, by correlating 

 them with the laws of physical processes 

 depending upon the several types of trans- 

 formed solar radiation, as heat, electricity, 

 magnetism, pressure and density. If such 

 a synchronous connection can ever be es- 

 tablished in the interest of annual or sea- 

 sonal forecasting, the advantage to public 

 utilities is evidently such as to justify all 

 reasonable efforts to secure it. 



THE GENERAL PROBLEMS 



The atmosphere of the earth is the seat 

 of many physical forces in mutual inter- 

 action, absorption and radiation of solar 

 energy, the transformation of this energy 

 into heat and the circidation of masses of 

 different densities under the force of gravi- 



tation on the rotating globe, the further 

 transformation of solar energy into electric 

 and magnetic forces and the other minor 

 forms. This implies the application of the 

 theorems of thermodynamics, hydrodynam- 

 ics and electromagnetism in an endless 

 complexity, and requires special researches 

 and studies on a large scale. Except for 

 recent work with balloons and kites on 

 temperatures, vapor pressures and wind 

 vectors, the observations of meteorology 

 have been limited to the surface strata of 

 the atmosphere, so that much inference 

 and extrapolation was inevitable. Furth- 

 ermore, the observations made at the nu- 

 merous stations in various latitudes and 

 longitudes have not been homogeneous, on 

 account of the incessant changes in the lo- 

 cation of the barometers, the thermom- 

 eters, the anemometers, and other instru- 

 ments, with the growth of modern cities 

 and for commercial conveniences. All 

 meteorological observation stations should 

 be removed from the cities and placed in 

 an environment that will have the same ex- 

 posures for a century, while the business 

 office for the convenience of the public is 

 placed in the town. Finally, the theoret- 

 ical science of meteorology made a bad 

 start with its literature. The first applica- 

 tions of thermodjmamics to hydrodynamics, 

 the early theories of the general circulation 

 and the formation of storms in cyclones 

 and anticyclones, have been proved entirely 

 inadequate and misleading. In some as- 

 pects the theory of general meteorology has 

 been revolutionized in the past twenty 

 years, and the rebuilding process is in 

 operation, but the hydrodynamic problems 

 are so difficult that progress is slow. The 

 observations are gradually being reduced 

 to homogeneous series, and many students 

 are now attracted to one problem or another 

 all over the world. 



Homogeneous Observations. — The gen- 



