936 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1122 



snowfall of the early winter was greater in the 

 western than in the eastern part of New Eng- 

 land, but not later, owing to the cooling of the 

 ocean water.^ 



SNOWFALL, 1915 TO 1916 (iNCHES) 



Eastport, Me 



Portland, Me 



Boston, Mass 



Blue Hill,Mass.9 

 Worcester, Mass.' 



Albany, N. Y 



Providence, E. I... 

 New Haven, Ct. .. 



88.6 

 79. -2 



111.5 58.2 



88.5 

 94.7 



73.1 

 41.1 



50.9 

 46.0 



37.8 



In Ifew Haven the ground was snow-covered 

 from February 3 to March 28, 1916. Two fea- 

 tures prevented the occurrence of floods when 

 the snow melted. First, on account of the late- 

 ness of the melting, the ground was thawed 

 out below and so received readily the water 

 from the melting snow. Second, the melting 

 took place in clear, cool weather and lasted 

 over a period of four days.^" 



The season ended with a fall of snow in 

 eastern New England on April 28, amounting 

 to eight inches at Blue Hill. 



PROFESSOR CLEVELAND ABBE 



At the annual meeting of the National 

 Academy of Sciences held in Washington in 

 April, 1916, Professor Cleveland Abbe was 

 awarded its gold medal for " eminence in the 

 application of science to the public welfare, in 

 consideration of his distinguished service in 

 inaugurating systematic meteorological ob- 

 servations in the United States." Unfortu- 

 nately, on account of illness Professor Abbe 

 could not be present to receive the medal in 



8 See Science, February 11, 1916, p. 212. 



Sleet included; since January 1, 1909, regular 

 Weather Bureau Stations have measured sleet 

 separately. Thus, if sleet were included, the total 

 for New Haven would be 82.3 instead of 76 

 inches. 



10 See article on snow-melting, by A. J. Henry, 

 Monthly Weather Beview, March, 1916, pp. 150 to 

 153. 



person. Since last June he has been incapaci- 

 tated by partial paralysis for his work as editor 

 of the Monthly Weather Review. 



Professor Abbe, who is in his seventy-eighth 

 year, has had forty-four years of distinguished 

 service in government meteorology, a period 

 significantly equal to the length of record of 

 most regular Weather Bureau stations. Early 

 in his career. Professor Abbe was an astron- 

 omer. On September 1, 1869, while he was 

 director of the Cincinnati Observatory, he 

 inaugurated daily weather reports for the Cin- 

 cinnati Chamber of Commerce, which at once 

 led the United States government to take up 

 similar work. From 1871 to 1891 he was pro- 

 fessor of meteorology and civilian assistant in 

 the office of the chief signal officer, U. S. 

 Army; and with the change of the weather 

 service to a civil bureau in 1891 he continued 

 as professor of meteorology in the Weather 

 Bureau. As editor of the Monthly Weather 

 Review from the time of its foundation to the 

 present!^ Professor Abbe has been in touch 

 with, and stimulated great numbers of meteor- 

 ological observers and investigators. Al- 

 though he was in a position to carry on but 

 few original investigations, he did an im- 

 mense amount of translation and compilation 

 of the results of others' meteorological investi- 

 gations. Among the more important of his 

 works are : " Meteorological Apparatus and 

 Methods" (1887); "The Mechanics of the 

 Earth's Atmosphere" (1891 and 1909); and 

 " First Report on the Relations between Cli- 

 mates and Crops" (1905, as of 1891). 



To him belongs the credit of publishing a 

 "Report on Standard Time" (1879) which 

 started the agitation that resulted in the mod- 

 em standard hour meridians from Greenwich. 



Professor Abbe is a member of a great many 

 domestic and foreign scientific societies, 

 among them being five meteorological societies 

 of Europe. Two signal honors from his con- 



11 In the period 1909 to 1913, inclusive, the 

 Monthly Weather Eeview was divided into two 

 sections, the one which kept the title including the 

 observational material, and the Bulletin of the 

 Mount Weather Observatory, the diseussional. 

 Professor Abbe edited the latter only. 



