260 



SCIENGE. 



LN. S, Vol. VIII. No. 191. 



straments sent aloft on kite lines. This 

 would be a step in advance, of the vei-y 

 greatest practical value in forecasting. The 

 discussion of the data obtained by the 

 Weather Bureau during the International 

 Cloud Year is in the hands of Professor F. 

 H. Bigelow, and his report is to be ready 

 during the present year. That our Weather 

 Bureau is carrying on a very important 

 work, of immense value to the commercial 

 and agricultural interests of this country, 

 is emphatically proved by a glance at this 

 Report. It is to be hoped that the Chief of 

 the Weather Bureau may secure the addi- 

 tional appropriations which he needs in 

 order to carry on and to extend the work 

 under his direction. 



In addition to the usual tables of me- 

 teorological data, the Report contains two 

 monographs. Rainfall of the United States, by 

 A. J. Henry, and Floods of the 3Iississippi 

 River, by Park Morrill, already published 

 as separate Bulletins by the Bureau. 



THE MAURITIUS OBSEEVATOBY. 



The Annual Report of the Director of the 

 Royal Alfred Observatory for the year 1896 

 brings official announcement of the resigna- 

 tion of Dr. Meldrum from the directorship 

 of that Observatory, a position which he 

 had held for 22 years. The work which 

 Dr. Meldrum has done in connection with 

 the law of storms is well known wherever 

 meteorology is studied the world over, and 

 meteorologists will always associate his 

 name with that of the island in the Indian 

 Ocean on which he lived so long and worked 

 so indefatigably. The new Director is Mr. 

 T. F. Claxton, F.R.A.S., whose name ap- 

 pears on the new volume of Residts of the 

 Magnetical and Meteorological Observations 

 made at the Royal Alfred Observatory, Mau- 

 ritius, in the Year 1896. This publication 

 contains the daily, monthly and annual 

 values of the principal meteorological ele- 



ments, and the usual tables of magnetical 

 observations. 



WEST INDIAN HUERICANES. 



The AVeather Bureau has recently pub- 

 lished an important article on West Indian 

 hurricanes by the late Father Benito Vines, 

 formerly Director of the Colegio de Belen, 

 Habana. Viiies' previous monograph en- 

 titled Apuntes relatives a los huracanes de las 

 Antillas en Setiembre y Octobre de 1875 y 

 1876 is a classic. The present article was 

 prepared by Father Vifies, shortly before 

 his death, for the Chicago Meteorological 

 Congress of 1893, and has been translated 

 from the Spanish by Dr. C. Finley, of Ha- 

 bana, the author revising the greater part 

 of it before his death. The title is Investiga- 

 tion of the Oyclonie Oircidation and the Trans- 

 latory Movement of the West Indian Hurricanes. 

 Owing to the present interest in everything 

 that concerns the meteorological conditions 

 of the West Indies, the Chief of the Weather 

 Bureau has wisely decided to give this arti- 

 cle immediate publication, rather than to 

 await its long-delayed appearance in the 

 Bulletin (No. 11) which contains the papers 

 prepared for the Chicago Congress, three 

 parts of which have been issued, leaving 

 the fourth still to come. 



R. DeC. Ward. 

 Haevaed Univeesity. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 PYGMY TRIBE IN AMERICA. 



So far as I am aware, no tribe of dwarf 

 stature has been found in America. The 

 Changes, of the Atacama desert, are prob- 

 ably the shortest. The average of the 

 males is four feet nine inches. Of course, 

 individual instances of dwarfs occur in 

 many tribes, as they do among ourselves. 

 These are due to other laws of growth than 

 a generally diminished height. 



In the Revue of the Paris School of 

 Anthropology for July, Dr. CoUineau 



