September 23, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



405 



electrochemical equivalent of silver by 

 Patterson and Guthe,* under a grant from 

 the American Association, brings Griffiths' 

 value for the mechanical equivalent of heat 

 into coincidence with Eowland's value. 

 This work of Patterson and Guthe is of the 

 greatest importance and is greatly to the 

 credit of the American Association Com- 

 mittee on Standards of Measurement. 



W. S. F. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 

 PAPAGUERIA. 



SiNGULAELY emphatic is the control ex- 

 ercised by the climatic conditions in the 

 arid region of southern Arizona over the 

 animal and vegetable life that is found 

 there, as is shown by MoGee in a recent 

 article on ' Papagueria ' (National Geo- 

 graphic Magazine, August) . The district in- 

 habited by the Papago Indians, south of 

 the Gila river and southwest of the Sierra 

 Madre and bounded on the southwest by 

 the Gulf of California, is extremely arid. 

 The scanty vegetation is fitted for its 

 peculiarly difficult struggle for existence by 

 being pulpy in structure and having im- 

 pervious rinds for preserving moisture, as 

 well as by being provided with thorns. 

 The animals are armed with mandibles, 

 stings, poison glands and other protective 

 devices. In order to carry on the struggle 

 for existence as successfully as possible, 

 animal and vegetable life associates itself 

 in communities, where grasses, trees, cacti, 

 insects, reptiles, birds and mammals live 

 together in harmony and mutual coopera- 

 tion. The most interesting control of the 

 climate is naturally that over man. The 

 keynote to the understanding of the life 

 and habits of the Papago Indians is to be 

 found in the climatic conditions. The 

 semi-nomadic life of the greater portion of 

 the tribe ; the building of their rude huts 

 in the vicinity of permanent or temporary 



*Eeported to Section B at the Boston Meeting. 



springs ; the absolute dependence of the 

 times of planting and of harvesting upon 

 the storms or freshets ; the migrations 

 southward and northward with the coming 

 on of summer or winter — in these and in 

 many other ways climate is seen to be the 

 great control in the life of the people. As 

 the writer strongly emphasizes at the con- 

 clusion of his extremely interesting paper, 

 " the life of the Papago is a round of mi- 

 grations and wanderings, largely in search 

 of the means of subsistence, of which the 

 first and the second and the third are water, 

 water, WATER— water to alleviate his own 

 thirst in the sun-parched deserts, water to 

 sustain his horses and burros and kine, 

 water to vivify the plants of which man and 

 his creatures eat." 



TREE PLANTING ON THE PLAINS. 



A NUMBER of points of meteorological in- 

 terest are found in Bulletin No. 18 of the 

 Division of Forestry, entitled 'Experi- 

 mental Tree Planting in the Plains,' by 

 Charles A. Keffer, Assistant Chief of the 

 Division. The experimental tree plantings 

 described in this report were begun in 

 1896, in South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, 

 Colorado, Minnesota and Utah. Protec- 

 tion, then amelioration of climate, is the 

 principal object of the plantings, a wood 

 supply being a secondary consideration, 

 for the growing of timber on a commercial 

 scale on the Plains is hardly to be expected. 

 That a lack of sufficient moisture is the 

 cause of the treelessness of the Plains has 

 often been claimed, but many artificial 

 plantings are now growing successfully in 

 what was a few years ago a treeless region. 

 A study of the climatic and soil conditions, 

 and the results of the experiments, lead 

 to the conclusion that the line of successful 

 tree culture will move westwai'd as the 

 agricultural development of the country 

 goes on, and as the soil is more and more 

 broken up and disintegrated. The preva- 



