OCTOBEE 10, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



521 



amount of solar radiation received at the 

 earth's surface was decreased by about 10 per 

 cent. Observations of terrestrial radiation 

 made at the same time by Mr. A. K. Ang- 

 strom, showed that the presence of the dust 

 likewise hindered terrestrial radiation, but 

 not to such an estent as the solar radiation 

 (of shorter wave-length). The net result of 

 these opposite tendencies, however, seems to 

 have been a decrease of heat available to warm 

 the lower atmospheres. Temperature observa- 

 tions of high-level stations in Europe and 

 America bear this out, showing a marked de- 

 crease of temperature with the beginning of 

 the volcanic dust cloud at the end of June. 



Other periods of marked decrease in the 

 solar radiation received as observed during the 

 last thirty years were the period 1883-1885 fol- 

 lowing the Krakatoa eruption; 1888-1894 

 after the great eruptions of Bandai-San, 

 Mayon and other volcanoes; and the period 

 1902-1904 following the tremendous eruptions 

 of Santa Maria and Colima. 



In comparing Abbot's and Fowle's composite 

 curve of Wolfer's sunspot numbers and Kim- 

 ball's solar-radiation departures, with the 

 mean departures of maximum temperature of 

 15 stations in the United States, it is interest- 

 ing to note that the temperature effects of 

 these dust-haze periods seem to explain the 

 discrepancies in the apparent synchronism be- 

 tween terrestrial temperatures and the 11-year 

 sun-spot period. 



In an extra number of the Bulletin of the 

 Mount Weather Oiservatory,' Professor W. J. 

 Humphreys has discussed at length the sub- 

 ject " Volcanic Dust and Other Factors in the 

 Production of Climatic Changes, and Their 

 Possible Eelation to Ice Ages." Particular 

 attention is given to sun-spots and great 

 volcanic eruptions as related to variations in 

 temperature at the earth's surface since 1750. 

 The phase of this subject concerning geological 

 changes of climate is treated by the same 

 author in the Scientific American Supplement, 

 August 23, 1913, p. 114. 



Charles F. Brooks 

 Blue Hill Meteorological Obseevatoet 



' Vol. VI., Part 1, 34 pp. 



DEGREES CONFEMMED B¥ TEE UNIVER- 

 SITY OF BIRMINGHAM 

 At the Birmingham meeting of the British 

 Association the university of the city con- 

 ferred, as has already been noted here, the 

 degree of doctor of laws on several of the 

 foreign guests. In introducing them Sir 

 Oliver Lodge, president of the association and 

 principal of the university, spoke as follows : 



Dr. Arrhenius : Director of the Nobel Insti- 

 tute for Physics and Chemistry, at Stockholm, 

 fellow of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, 

 and foreign member of our own Eoyal Society. 

 The courageous way in which Dr. Arrhenius 

 applied the theory of electrolytic dissociation 

 to a quantitative study of chemical reactions 

 has profoundly modified the trend of chemical 

 science during the past thirty years, enlarging 

 the scope of chemical investigation, harmon- 

 izing previously disconnected facts, and bring- 

 ing an ever-increasing number of chemical 

 phenomena within the range of quantitative 

 and mathematical treatment. He is thus one 

 of the most prominent of the founders of 

 modem physical chemistry, the principles of 

 which he has even applied, with singular suc- 

 cess, to some of the most subtle phenomena of 

 organic life. Recently his writings on cos- 

 mogony have aroused wide interest; terrestrial 

 electricity and the aurora have yielded to him 

 some of their secrets; and his speculations on 

 worlds in the making are more than interesting 

 and suggestive. A man of genius, and one of 

 the founders of physical chemistry, I present 

 for the honorary degree of doctor of laws, 

 Svante August Arrhenius. 



Madame Curie: The discoverer of radium, 

 director of the Physical Laboratory at the 

 Sorbonne, and member of the Imperial Acad- 

 emy of Sciences at Cracow. All the world 

 knows how Madame Curie (coming from 

 Warsaw as Marie Sklodowska to work in 

 Paris), inspired by the spontaneous radio- 

 activity newly discovered by Becquerel, began 

 in 1896 a metrical examination of the radio- 

 activity of minerals of all kinds; and how, 

 when a uranium residue showed a value larger 

 than could have been expected from its ura- 

 nium content, she, with exemplary skill and 

 perseverance, worked down some tons of this 



