Febeuaet 10, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



227 



by the present mode of treatment until the 

 ■country is base-leveled; that the SzeChuanese 

 have thus demonstrated one mode of effective 

 secular maintenance of the soil productivity; 

 that their method is closely analogous to the 

 natural method of the geologic ages; that a 

 ■Chinese expert would criticize western prac- 

 tise as influenced unduly by prejudice respect- 

 ing the use of the katamorphic products of 

 human food-consumption. 



That notwithstanding the loss due to this 

 prejudice respecting the use of human kata- 

 morphic products, the soils of western nations 

 .generally show increases of productivity in 

 the later years compared with the earlier; 

 that, in particular, the data furnished by the 

 Bureau of Statistics and the Bureau of Soils 

 that the productivity of the soils of the United 

 Kingdom, France, Belgium, Netherlands, 

 Denmark, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Eou- 

 mania and Eussia show rather steady and 

 notable increases in productivity for the last 

 two or more decades that are covered by the 

 statistics; that the lands most densely inhab- 

 ited and most intensively cultivated, such as 

 "those of England, France, Germany and 

 neighboring states, are more productive, unit 

 for unit, than those of Eussia, which are less 

 ■densely occupied and less closely and persist- 

 gently cultivated; that the old soils of Europe 

 are more productive, unit for unit, than the 

 newer soils of America; that in the United 

 States the productivity of the last forty years 

 shows general increase per acre; that the in- 

 crease per acre in the older states, as the New 

 York-New England group or the middle 

 states, is more marked than in the southern 

 •or in the western groups, notwithstanding the 

 larger proportion of virgin soil recently 

 brought under cultivation in the last group; 

 "that while these and all similar statistics are 

 subject to many qualifications in interpreta- 

 tion and application, they do not ofEer sub- 

 stantial grounds for an alarming forecast, 

 ■applicable to an industrious and intelligent 

 people willing to be guided either by oriental 

 ■experience or by western scientific research. 



T. C. Chambeelix 

 Univbbsitt of Chicago 



tlOTES ON METEOROLOGY AND 

 CLIMATOLOGY 



The effect of the recent construction of 

 high buildings in New York City upon the 

 United States Weather Bureau's records of 

 wind velocity and direction for that city are 

 discussed by Mr. E. S. Nichols, the local fore- 

 caster, in the October number of the Monthly 

 Weather Review. Since the anemometer and 

 the windvane were placed upon the American 

 Surety Building at an altitude of 350 feet 

 above the street in 1900, several new " sky- 

 scrapers " have been erected in the immediate 

 vicinity, vitiating to a greater or less extent 

 the wind records since obtained. A compari- 

 son of the bureau's records with those of the 

 New York Meteorological Observatory in Cen- 

 tral Park, where the environment has not been 

 greatly changed in forty years, shows that 

 there has been a decrease of 16 per cent, in the 

 hourly wind movement directly attributable to 

 the recent construction. North winds have 

 been affected the most; northeast and east 

 have not been changed materially ; while other 

 directions have been considerably reduced. 

 The number of days upon which gales have 

 been recorded has decreased noticeably, and 

 wind direction has been more or less deflected. 

 Partly because of a desire to prevent the re- 

 currence of such a condition in other cities, 

 the bureau is gradually erecting appropriate 

 buildings of its own in localities where future 

 changes in the environment are not likely to 

 affect the records obtained. 



From an investigation of the relation be- 

 tween solar activity and terrestrial tempera- 

 tures. Professor Humphreys has come to the 

 conclusion that the decrease in the ultra-violet 

 radiations received by the earth during the 

 period of sun-spot maximum causes a similar 

 decrease in the amount of ozone formed in the 

 upper part of the earth's atmosphere. More- 

 over, since ozone allows the solar heat rays to 

 penetrate it freely but absorbs most of the 

 returning earth reflection, spot maxima indi- 

 rectly produce diminished terrestrial tempera- 

 tures. Abbot and Fowle had already con- 

 cluded that spot maxima are accompanied by 

 terrestrial temperature minima, and vice 



