Febeuaky 11, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



215 



generally in the west early and in the east in 

 the middle of the season. According to Sr. 

 J. C. Millas (Second Pan- American Scientific 

 Congress) the original impulse which sets the 

 air in rotation may come from winds at the 

 level of the intermediate clouds. Thus the 

 cyclones are probably largely convectional in 

 origin but to some extent dynamical. 



CLIMATIC SUBDIVISIONS OF THE UNITED 

 STATES' 



Professor R. DeC. Ward, after treating 

 earlier and present climate subdivisions of the 

 United States, proposes a new scheme based 

 on the following principles: 

 ... the subdivisions should be chosen because of 

 their special relations to cyclonic and anticyclonic 

 tracks and movement; to local and characteristic 

 weather distribution around lows and highs ; to cy- 

 clonic and anticyclonic winds; and because of gen- 

 eral similarity of weather types over each province. 

 Finally, the districts should, as far as possible, be 

 the same as those which have been officially adopted 

 in the publication of the meteorological and cli- 

 matic data of the region. 



He makes eight provinces. The Eastern 

 Province includes all the eastern IJnited States 

 except for the Gulf Province, a strip along the 

 southern coasts extending inland about 200 

 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The two 

 Plains provinces have their eastern boundary 

 roughly set at the 100th meridian — more ex- 

 actly on the 2,000-foot contour. The two 

 Plateau provinces begin at the main crest of 

 the Eockies and the two Pacific provinces oc- 

 cupy the region west of the crests of the Sierra 

 Nevadas and Cascades. The line dividing the 

 northern from the southern Pacific, Plateau 

 and Plains provinces follows in general the 

 southern boundaries of Oregon, Idaho, Wyo- 

 ming and Nebraska. These serviceable sub- 

 divisions not only follow Professor Ward's 

 specifications, but also can be easily remem- 

 bered. 



NOTES 



The Monthly Weather Review under the 

 acting editorship of Professor Cleveland Abbe, 



8 Bulletin of the Am. Geog. Soc, September, 

 1915, pp. 672-680. Condensed in Mo. Weather 

 Sev., September, 1915, pp. 467-^68. 



Jr., has become a comprehensive meteorolog- 

 ical magazine international in scope. It con- 

 tains in addition to direct meteorological con- 

 tributions from Americans and foreigners 

 many reprints and abstracts of important 

 meteorological papers which have appeared 

 elsewhere. The Weather Bureau library under 

 the direction of Professor C. F. Talman con- 

 tributes not only its monthly list of publica- 

 tions received and of papers bearing on me- 

 teorology, but also notes of general interest. 



" A List of Meteorological Isograms," is the 

 title of one such note by Professor Talman." 



The term "Isogram" was suggested by Francis 

 Galton in 1889 as a convenient generic designa- 

 tion for lines, on a chart or diagram indicating 

 equality of some physical condition or quantity. 

 . . . The largest number of those to which partic- 

 ular na'/ies have been assigned belong to meteorol- 

 ogy- 



The list of 90 such isograms includes the 

 author of each term and the earliest instance 

 of its use, so far as this information could be 

 obtained by the compiler. Most of the terms 

 are rarely used. 



Miss E. Buynitzky, of the library, has con- 

 tributed a " Tentative Classification for Me- 

 teorological Literature." ^^ This is based on 

 schedule F of the International Catalogue of 

 Scientific Literature, but in general form is 

 like the Dewey decimal system. The main 

 divisions are as follows : 

 00 General Works. 



10 Observatories. Methods of observation. 

 20 Instruments. 



30 Physics of the atmosphere. Cosmical rela- 

 tions. Aerology. 

 40 Pressiu-e. 



50 Temperature. Eadiation. 

 60 Atmospheric moisture. 

 70 Circulation of the atmosphere. 

 80 Atmospheric electricity. 

 90 Climate and weather. 



There are 81 main heads and 71 subheads ; and 

 it is easy to add more. A few minor rearrange- 



9 Mo. Weather Bev., April, 1915, pp. 195-198. 



10 Mo. Weather Sev., September, 1915, pp. 362- 

 364. 



