August 8, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



193 



public schools, the newly organized school 

 board having declined to accept it, by vote of 

 fourteen to one. 



Dr. Arthur D. Hirschfelder, of Johns 

 Hopkins Medical School, has accepted the ap- 

 pointment of professor of pharmacy and di- 

 rector of the pharmaceutical department of 

 the University of Minnesota. 



Dr. J. M. Slemons, associate professor of 

 obstetrics at Johns Hopkins Medical School, 

 has been appointed head of the department of 

 obstetrics and gynecology and director of the 

 woman's clinic in the University of California. 



Mr. Harold S. Osler has been elected as- 

 sistant professor of agronomy, in charge of 

 the crops section at the University of Maine. 



Me. J. B. Demaree, recently of the Ohio 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, and for the 

 last six months engaged in the study of plant 

 rusts at the Indiana Experiment Station, has 

 accepted a position in the State College of 

 Pennsylvania as instructor in botany. 



Professor Kruse has accepted the call as 

 director of the Hygienic Institute at Leipzig 

 as successor of Professor Hofmann. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 



three ice storms 

 During the last two weeks in February, 

 1913, two ice storms which were of rather un- 

 usual meteorological interest, were observed 

 at Blue Hill Observatory (10 miles south of 

 Boston, Mass.). An "ice storm" (glatteis, 

 verglas) occurs when raindrops falling on trees 

 and other objects, cover them with ice. In 

 both cases the ice storms began at the base sta- 

 tion (400 feet below the summit and one half 

 mile northwest) nearly three hours earlier 

 than at the summit. The first ice storm oc- 

 curred during the night of Eebruary 16-lY. 

 Throughout the sixteenth at the summit of 

 Blue Hill, the wind was southerly, with the 

 temperature in the forties (F.). In the mid- 

 dle of the afternoon, a low fog appeared over 

 Boston. By sunset, this fog filled the entire 

 Boston basin and was beginning to send long 

 fingers southward through the notches in the 



Blue Hill Eange and up the low Neponset Val- 

 ley. Not till three hours later did the fog 

 overtop Great Blue Hill with its accompany- 

 ing northeast wind and freezing temperature. 

 The warm south wind, whose lower boundary 

 had now risen above the hill, continued above 

 the lower wedge of cold air and with its rain 

 supplied the material for the ice storm below. 



The second storm began in the morning, 

 February 27, and continued for twenty-four 

 hours, the ice attaining a thickness of one 

 inch. The night before, at a temperature of 

 26° a fine thick snow had set in with a brisk 

 southeast wind. In the early morning, the 

 temperature passed 32°, the snow changing 

 to rain. At 5 :20 a.m. the first influence of a 

 cold current of air from the north was re- 

 corded on the thermograph at the base station 

 (temperature fell rapidly from 35° to 31°). 

 Not tiU 8:15 a.m. did the wind on the sum- 

 mit swing to the north, lowering the tempera- 

 ture to that of the base station. The warmer 

 air current continued above, unabated, for 

 at 9 p.m. the light rain had become heavy 

 (rain temperature 32.3°) and the cold, north- 

 east wind (27°-31°) had increased to brisk. 

 On the following morning in the warm sun- 

 shine and rapidly rising temperature, the ice 

 melted off the trees so rapidly that for half 

 an hour the sound of falling ice resembled 

 that of a heavy hailstorm. 



Another ice storm deserving mention here 

 was that of February 21-22. The weather 

 map of February 21 showed an ice storm in 

 progress over a strip of country 100-200 miles 

 wide, extending from northern Texas to south- 

 ern Michigan. The next morning, this ice- 

 storm belt was shown as a strip about forty 

 miles wide from northern Vermont to southern 

 Maine. The geographical distribution of the 

 different forms taken by the heavy precipita- 

 tion throughout New Hampshire was par- 

 ticularly interesting as viewed from a train 

 window two days later. At Jackson, N. H., 

 the precipitation on February 22 had been 

 about seven inches of snow and one inch of ice 

 pellets. Southward, this snow-covering de- 

 creased rapidly into a thin, compact blanket 

 of ice pellets and frozen rain, ice appearing on 



