564 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 94. 



prepared by John Eliot, F. E. S., Meteoro- 

 logical Eeporter to tlie Government of India. 



AUSTRALIAN WEATHER. 



Mention was recently made in these 

 Notes of a little volume entitled Australian 

 Weather^ containing three essays of consid- 

 erable importance on matters connected 

 with Australia^n meteorology. We have 

 since been informed that the book can be 

 purchased of G. Eobertson & Co., George 

 street, Sydney, N. S. W., for 2s. 6d. Me- 

 teorologists are certainly under a debt of 

 gratitude to Hon. Ealph Abercromby, un- 

 der whose auspices and at whose expense 

 the book was published. Mr. Abercromby, 

 though now incapacitated for active work 

 by reason of poor health, still keeps up his 

 interest in meteorology by providing means 

 for others to do the work he is no longer 

 able to accomplish. 



NOTES. 



Among other publications are the follow- 

 ing: 



0. Petterson : Ueber die BezieJiungen 

 swischen hydrographischen und meteorologischen 

 Phdnomenen. Met. Zeitschr., August 1896, 

 285-321. An important paper, containing 

 much of interest on the temperature and 

 other conditions of the ocean surface in 

 their relations to meteorological phenomena. 



J. L. Cline : The Climate of Texas and the 

 Cidtivation of the Apple. Eeprinted from the 

 Galveston Daily Netvs, August 22, 1896. 

 8vo. Pp. 7. The author concludes : " There 

 appears nothing in the climate of the 

 greater portion of Texas to prevent suc- 

 cessful apple culture except that irrigation 

 will be necessary." 



H. F. Williams : Temperatures Injurious 

 to Food Products in Storage and during Trans- 

 portation, and Methods of Protection from the 

 Same. Prepared under the direction of the 

 Chief of the Weather Bureau, Weather 

 Bureau Bull. No. 13, 8vo., pp. 20. This is 



a revised and enlarged edition of a publica- 

 tion bearing the same title and originally 

 issued as a circular of the Weather Bureau. 



E. DeC. Ward. 



Haevaed University. 



ASTRONOMICAL NOTES. 

 Among recent American publications we 

 notice Vol. IX. from the Washburn Obser- 

 vatory. It contains Prof. Comstock's in- 

 vestigation of the constants of aberration 

 and refraction by means of a modification 

 of M. Loewy's method. This consists in 

 measuring with a micrometer the distances 

 of stars which are about 120° apart on the 

 sky. In order to bring the images of such 

 distant stars simultaneously into the field 

 of view of the telescope, a prism is placed 

 outside of the object glass. From the vari- 

 ation of the distances throughout the year 

 it is possible to deduce a value of the aber- 

 ration which should be independent of any 

 assumed star places. In order to make the 

 refraction constant likewise independent of 

 assumed star places, Prof, Comstock has 

 employed sets of pairs of stars so situated 

 that it was possible to take advantage of 

 the fact that the sum of the successive dif- 

 ferences of right ascension of any series 

 of stars will be exactly 360°, provided the 

 series begins and ends with the same star. 

 It is to be regretted that we have not 

 space to devote to Prof. Comstock's work 

 an extended review. Very high praise is 

 due, however, to the skill and care with 

 which the whole very large piece of work 

 has been accomplished. It is a praise- 

 worthy thing to turn out a large series of 

 observations well made and reduced, with 

 instrumental methods and with methods of 

 reduction which have been well settled by 

 the experience of successive generations of 

 astronomers. But it is a very different 

 thing to take up a new method of observ- 

 ing with a new form of instrument, and to 

 carry out successfully an investigation of 



