830 



SCmNGE. 



[N. S. Vol, IV. No. 101. 



derate heat and no season so dry as to 

 leave a permanent mark on the vegetation. 

 As regards the characteristics of the people 

 who inhabit these different regions, it seems 

 that the wet jungle is the home of small 

 weak tribes in the lowest stage of civiliza- 

 tion. Healthy and vigorous tribes, on the 

 other hand, inhabit the desert. The acacia 

 region is rather densely populated every- 

 where, but no large emigrations have taken 

 place from it. The temperate grass and 

 forest regions are inhabited by vigorous 

 and turbulent native tribes, who have, ex- 

 cept in one instance, resisted both the Arab 

 and the European. 



ECLIPSE OBSERVATIONS. 



Meteorological observations made in 

 Eussia during the solar eclipse of August 

 9th are at hand (Met. Zeitschr., October, 

 1896, 399-400). At the Central Physical 

 Observatory, in St. Petersburg, in spite of 

 the low altitude of the sun, the dull weather 

 and the light rain, a fall in the temperature 

 of the air and of the earth's surface was 

 noticeable. At the beginning of the eclipse 

 (4:51 a. m.) the air temperature was 55.4°; 

 at 5:45, 55.2°, and at the end of the eclipse 

 (6:43 a. m.), 55.7°. The temperature of 

 the earth's surface fell more decidedly. At 

 Pawlowsk, where the sky was also covered 

 with clouds almost all the time, and light 

 rain was falling, the air temperature at the 

 beginning of the eclipse was 56.6° ; at the 

 middle, 56.1° . A Sprung barograph showed 

 a sudden fall of .25 mm. before the begin- 

 ning of the eclipse, while during the eclipse 

 there was a rise of .75 mm., and after it a 

 fall. Such rises of pressure have been pre- 

 viously observed during solar eclipses, and 

 are probably due to the decrease in tem- 

 perature caused by the cutting off of the 

 sun's rays and the resulting in- creeping of 

 the air above. 



EARLY MEASUREMENTS OF CLOUD HEIGHTS. 



The October number of the Meteorologische 



Zeitschrift contains a note on the earliest 

 measurements of cloud heights of which 

 there is record. It appears that two Jesuits, 

 Eicciolo and Grimaldi, made some trigono- 

 metrical measurements of the heights of 

 clouds in 1644 near Bologna. Riccioli, in 

 his work, ' Almagestum novum,' collected 

 the previous writings on the subject and 

 proposed a scheme for calculating the 

 heights of clouds by observations of their 

 shadows. The luminous night clouds, about 

 which there has been some discussion 

 within the past few years, were observed by 

 Maignan, and explained by him, in 1648, 

 as being illuminated by the sun, they float- 

 ing at so great a height as to be outside of 

 the earth's shadow. 



THE TORNADO OF SEPTEMBER lOTH IN PARIS. 



An account of the Paris tornado of Sep- 

 tember 10th., last, appears in UAerophile for 

 October, together with diagrams showing 

 the curves traced by the self-recording in- 

 struments at the Tour St. Jacques Observa- 

 tory. The barograph curve indicates a 

 sudden fall of 6 mm., an immediate recov- 

 ery to a slightly higher (.25 mm.) pressure 

 than was recorded just before the fall ; then 

 a slight fall of .50 mm., followed by a 

 gradual rise. The air temperature at the 

 top of the tower rose at the time of lowest 

 pressure, rather suddenly, and then fell. 

 The hygrometer indicated decreasing humid- 

 ity for some time before as well as during 

 the time of minimum pressure. The data 

 as to the destruction caused by, and the 

 general characteristics of, the phenomenon 

 point to its having been a true tornado, 

 though not by any means a violent one. 



NOTES. 



The Hot Winds of Northern India and An 

 Account of a Storm Developed in Equatorial 

 Regions are the subjects of two recent papers 

 by Eliot and Dallas respectively, in Vol. 

 VI., Part III., of the Indian Meteorological 

 Memoirs. 



