124 



SCIENCE. 



[V^OL. YIII., No. 183 



however, might base an opinion contrary to mine, 

 on the ground of common zoological ancestry, 

 heredity, atavism, and so forth, according to the gen- 

 eral principles of evolution. 



Not even a ' well known ghost-smeller ' should re- 

 tort by calling Professor Scudder a hitherto un- 

 known ' cat- smeller,' because that would not be 

 polite, and because the learned professor does not 

 smell cats, in point of fact, when he enters into 

 telepathic relations with these zoological organisms. 

 And then, too, his apparent inability to become cog- 

 nizant of unemlodied human intelligences by 

 means of telepathy mav be more a matter of neces- 

 sity than of choice. Should he ever succeed in 

 establishing telepathic i elations with a ghost, let us 

 trust he will find such method of communication less 

 painful to his respiratory apparatus, and more con- 

 ducive to his neace of mind. 



Elliott Coues, F. T. S., 



Censor A. 8. P. R. 

 Washington, D.C. 



Barometer exposure. 



In President LeConte's last letter {Science, vol. 

 viii. p. 80) he suggests that the effects of the wind 

 on the barometer should be farther experimented on ; 

 since " it is evident, that, according to the conditions 

 of exposure, the influence of the wind must tend 

 sometimes to increase, and at other times to dimin- 

 ish, the pressure within the building in which the 

 barometer is placed." Mr. Gilbert's and Mr. Todd's 

 experiments {Science, vol. vii. p. 571, and vol. viii. 

 p. 58) certainly indicate that the pressure is higher 

 on the windward than on the leeward side of 

 objects ; and I have frequently found at Blue Hill 

 observatory, that, if a window or door be opened on 

 the side against which a strong wind is blowing, 

 there will be a rise of the barometer in the building, 

 and a fall again when the window is closed. 



This does not prove, however, that the effect of 

 the wind on an in-door barometer is as likely to make 

 it read too high as too low. Both deduction from 

 theory and induction from all of the facts so far 

 gathered, I think, indicate, that, under all ordinary 

 conditions, the effect of the wind must be to make 

 an in-door barometer read too low. The experiments 

 of physicists clearly demonstrate that air, in moving 

 by at right angles to an aperture, lowers the pressure 

 within ; hence, while wind would tend to increase 

 the pressure on the windward side of a building, on 

 every other side and at the top of the building the 

 tendency must be to reduce the pressure ; and the 

 total resultant must be a decided lowering of the 

 pressure within the building during a strong wind. 

 These points were only omitted from my first letter 

 because I was desirous of being brief. 



The effect of wind in lowering the pressure is 

 probably strongly felt on board of ships, where the 

 bottom and sides are tight, and the wind blows di- 

 rectly across the apertures at the top. This, perhaps, 

 in part accounts for the very low readings sometimes 

 reported in severe storms. 



In his I9th paper {Amer. journ. sc, Dec, 1883), 

 Loomis makes a careful comparison between the 

 observed gradients in severe storms and those com- 

 puted by Ferrel's formula. The storms were those 

 occurring on the Atlantic Ocean and in the United 

 States ; and comparisons were made on that side of 

 the storms wheie the winds were strongest and 



gradients steepest. He found that the observed 

 gradients were always larger than the computed 

 gradients, and the latter had to be increased by a 

 a suitable constant to equal the former. In these 

 cases, might not the observed gradients have been 

 only apparent, and partly due to erroneous readings 

 of the barometer produced by a greater wind velocity 

 near the centre of the storm ? 



H. Helm Clayton. 

 Blue Hill meteor, obser., July 26. 



The swindling naturalist caught. 



The geological swindler described in Science, p. 

 308, No. 165 (April 2, 1886), has finally been en- 

 trapped and captured here, and is now in jail at 

 Kankakee, Illinois, for the sale of books which he 

 borrowed from a gentleman in that town. 



He passed here as ' Captain Lindley ' of the U. S. 

 army, detailed as ' instructor in geology ' at West 

 Point. I need not say that there is no such name in 

 the Army register nor on the roster of instructors 

 at the military academy. 



As he will undoubtedly be sentenced for at least a 

 term in jail, it is much to be desired that those who 

 have heretofore been swindled by him may com- 

 municate promptly with the sheriff of Kankakee 

 county. If he is not vigorously prosecuted, it will 

 soon become necessary for the naturalist to carry a 

 passport in travelling through this region. 



S. A. FOBBES. 

 Champaign, III , July 28. 



A brilliant aurora. 



At 9 P.M. on July 27, an arch of an aurora was 

 noticed here through the clouds in the north east. 

 At 10.45 P.M. the sky was clear and a brilliant 

 auroral arch stretched entirely across the northern 

 sky with a height above the horizon of 15* or 20" 

 and a width of about 5°. Beneath it the sky was 

 very dark ; but from its top stretched upward to 

 within about 30*^ of the zenith the most brilliant 

 streamers, which danced and flickered, and during 

 the ten minutes preceding 11 p.m. showed beautiful 

 colors at their base. At 11.10 p.m. the arch had be- 

 come dimmer, and the streamers had developed into 

 patches of light which stretched up still nearer the 

 zenith. At this time waves or pulses of light shot 

 upward from the north in rapid succession and 

 moved with great rapidity. These continued, but 

 the auroral arch gradually died away, and at 11.20 

 P.M. only patches of white light were visible, which 

 covered about three-fourths of the northern sky. At 

 11.27 P.M.a large patch of white light in the north-east 

 began visibly to move upward toward the zenith, 

 and the patches on all sides began to extend in the 

 same direction ; so that by 11.30 p.m. the whole 

 northern half of the sky was covered with patches 

 of pulsating light. At 11.32 p.m. the patches ex- 

 tended eight or ten degrees beyond the zenith, and 

 the magnetic zenith became apparent by the arrange- 

 ment of the patches around it. After 11.35 p.m. the 

 aurora began to die down, and by midnight only a 

 whitish glow was visible in the north. At 2 a.m. of 

 the 28th the conditions remained much the same as 

 at midnight. 



A number of meteors were seen in the north-east 

 while watching the aurora. 



H. Helm Clayton. 

 Blue Hill meteor, observ., July 28. 



