GCTOBEE 30, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



651 



position of the cyclonic tracks and their de- 

 pendence on the general (seasonal) distri- 

 bution of pressure and of temperature over 

 Europe and .the Atlantic Ocean are seen to 

 be controlling factors in the production of 

 the different weather types. 



THE FIRST DAILY WEATHER MAP. 



One of the important dates in meteorol- 

 ogy, about which there has been a good deal 

 of dispute lately, is that which marks the 

 issue of the first daily weather map. The 

 credit of having been the first to publish 

 such a map has been generally given to Le 

 Verrier, who, on September 16, 1863, began 

 the issue of a daily weather map in Paris. 

 It is a fact, however, that twelve years be- 

 fore that, in 1851, a weather map based on 

 observations made on the day of its publi- 

 cation was issued and sold in the Great Ex- 

 hibition in England. The data for the map 

 were collected by telegraph, and its publica- 

 tion was continued from August 8 to Octo- 

 ber 11, 1851, Sundays excepted. This was 

 without doubt the first daily weather map. 

 The September number of Symons^ Meteoro- 

 logical Magazine contains a reproduction, 

 about one-quarter the size of the original, 

 of the Great Exhibition map of August 8, 

 1851. K. DeC. Ward. 



Haevaed University. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 

 A NEW element appears to have been dis- 

 covered in monazite, to which the discov- 

 erer, P. Barri^re gives the name Lueium. It 

 is closely akin to the rare earths, perhaps 

 most resembling erbium, though with quite 

 different spectral rays. Its atomic weight 

 is calculated as 104. The elementary na- 

 ture of the substance is reported to have 

 been confirmed by Schiitzenberger, Cleve, 

 Fresenius and Boisbaudran. The only thing 

 which seems to render the discovery ques- 

 tionable is that Barri^re proposes to use the 

 substance for the production of incandes- 

 cent gas light in competition with the Wels- 



bach burner and without infringing upon 

 the patents which practically cover the use 

 of all the rare earths now known. 



In a recent number of the Comptes Een- 

 due, Moissan has summed up his researches 

 on metallic carbids. In the electrical fur- 

 nace no compounds with carbon could be 

 formed with gold, bismuth or tin. Silver 

 and the platinum metals take up carbon, 

 but all separates out as graphite on cooling. 

 No crystallized iron carbid could be formed. 

 Copper takes up a trace of carbon only, but 

 it materially effects its properties. The 

 metals of the alkalies and alkaline earths 

 form crystalline carbids which are decom- 

 posed by cold water with the evolution of 

 acetylene. The carbids of aluminum and 

 glucinum with water give off methane ; the 

 carbid of cerium, acetylene and methane ; 

 the carbid of manganese, methane and hy- 

 drogen ; the carbid of uranium, methane, 

 hydrogen and ethylene. The latter also 

 gives off liquid and solid hydrocarbons in 

 considerable quantity, as do in smaller 

 quantities, the carbids of cerium and lan- 

 thanum. The carbids of molybdenum, 

 tungsten and chromium fuse only at high 

 temperature and are not acted on by water 

 in the cold. In addition the carbids of sili- 

 con (carborundum), titanium, zirconium 

 and vanadium, formed only at very high 

 temperature are known. The fact of the 

 formation of different hydrocarbons by the 

 action of water upon the metallic carbids 

 may have a decided bearing on the forma- 

 tion of petroleum and natural gas, and 

 other hydrocarbons occurring in nature. 



EossEL has followed up the researches in 

 which Moissan found that the carbon of 

 iron which had been saturated at 3000° and 

 cooled under great pressure, crystallized out 

 in small diamonds. Examining very hard 

 steel, formed under similar conditions, Ros- 

 sel finds a considerable quantity of crystal- 

 lized carbon, which resembles Moissan's 



