752 



SCIENCE. 



LN. S. Vol. XVII. No. 436. 



tutions in this country, is that so little is 

 known of what others are doing and, conse- 

 quently, a great deal of human effort is need- 

 lessly wasted. Much sciolistic conceit would 

 be also avoided if this publication, with its 

 preceding series and additional data from the 

 ' Index Catalogue,' could be properly utilized, 

 and medical literature would be a far more 

 satisfactory thing than it is at present. 

 Brown- Sequard, the celebrated French physiol- 

 ogist, used to bitterly complain of the amount 

 of rediscovery of his work that he was con- 

 stantly seeing in the German literature. It is 

 only by such bibliographies as the ' Index 

 Medicus ' that much of this can be avoided. 

 We hope the subscription list will be at least 

 quadrupled. The very moderate subscription 

 price, $5, puts it within the reach of everyone 

 who is attempting to do any medical literary 

 work, and no one should attempt that without 

 having at least access to its aid. We do not 

 believe in multiplication of references or un- 

 necessarily elaborate bibliographies, and the 

 rule of verifying one's references by the orig- 

 inals, of course, is a good one to be followed, 

 but there is no better first guide to medical 

 literature than the ' Index Medicus ' as now 

 presented to the profession. — Journal of the 

 American Medical Association. 



THE PRESIDENCY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 



The University of Virginia, after adhering 

 for over eighty years to the plan of govern- 

 ment devised by its founder, Thomas Jefferson, 

 now decides to conform to the practice of 

 other American universities and to elect a 

 president. From the names suggested for the 

 office it may be inferred that it is a ' business ' 

 president that is wanted. No doubt, the trus- 

 tees of the university know best the needs of 

 the institution, and it may be that in the 

 modern competition in education it is neces- 

 sary to sacrifice individual characteristics. 

 An enlightened despotism, more or less tem- 

 pered by trustee or overseer supervision, can 

 accomplish much in a short time from both 

 the financial and the educational points of 

 view, as Harvard shows. It is possible, there- 

 fore, that the change may bring immediate 

 prosperity to the University of Virginia. 



All the same, regret must be felt that a 

 system devised by the great Democrat with 

 the deliberate purpose of eliminating the one- 

 man power, a system that has proved efficient 

 and successful in its scholarly results and in 

 the character of the men trained under it, 

 should disappear in the modern craving for 

 uniformity and for quick material gains. — • 

 New York Sun. 



CVRRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 

 GENERAL CIROULATION OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 



An important publication is the report on 

 the general circulation of the atmosphere, pre- 

 pared by Dr. Hildebrandsson as Part I. of the 

 ' Eapport sur les Observations Internationales 

 des Nuages ' for the International Meteorolog- 

 ical Committee (Upsala, 1903, large 8vo., pp. 

 48, pis. XXII.). This is a brief historical 

 presentation of the theories of the general 

 circulation of the atmosphere advanced by 

 Dove, Maury, Ferrel and Thomson, and an 

 examination of the results of cloud observa- 

 tions made at stations in different parts of the 

 world in their bearing on these theories. These 

 results, which include the latest and best ob- 

 tainable, are presented graphically in a series 

 of twenty-two charts, for stations selected be- 

 cause of their position in certain critical lati- 

 tudes. Thus, among these stations are found 

 the following : San Jose de Costa Eica ; ' Square 

 No. 3 ' (Lat. 0°-10° N. ; Long. 20°-30° W.) ; 

 Manila; Mauritius; San Fernando and Lisbon; 

 Havana; Lahore, Allahabad and Calcutta; 

 Kurrachee, Bombay and Cuttack; Blue Hill; 

 Paris ; several in England, Germany and Den- 

 mark; Upsala, and others in Sweden, Norway, 

 Siberia, China, Japan. Dr. Hildebrandsson, 

 as is well known, has already done most im- 

 portant work in his study of cloud forms and 

 cloud measurements, and he has been one of 

 the moving spirits in the international inves- 

 tigation of cloud heights and velocities. He 

 is, therefore, the meteorologist who is per- 

 haps best fitted to undertake the discussion in 

 hand, and his conclusions, which are based on 

 a thorough study of data carefully compared 

 and digested, will be received with satisfaction 

 and accepted with confidence. So important are 

 some of these conclusions in their bearing on 



