184 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol.. XX. No. 501. 



to the transmission of daily weather reports 

 by telegraph; the use of wireless telegraphy 

 ' in providing advance news of weather on the 

 Atlantic ' ; an increase of the office staff, and 

 the provision of new quarters for the central 

 office. 



ANTAECTIO WINDS. 



Dr. Erich von Drygalski, in a paper read 

 before the Royal Geographical Society on 

 April 25 last, on the German South Polar 

 Expedition, calls special attention to the winds 

 noted during the Gauss voyage to the far 

 south. The zone of prevailing westerlies was 

 left behind and a trough of low pressure was 

 crossed, the ship remaining on the southern 

 slope of this trough, where the pressure rises 

 again to a maximum over the continent. 

 Here the winds were found to be prevailingly 

 easterly, ' which sweep dovm from the south 

 over the vast uniform and but slightly in- 

 clined surfaces of the inland ice, and appear 

 on the sea-board as easterly, foehn-like gales.' 

 These gales, according to Dr. von Drygalski, 

 give this south polar region its distinctive 

 character, and also its limits, and by their 

 frequency and uniformity 'they reveal the 

 immensity and the- homogeneous nature of 

 those Antarctic lands.' 



NOTES. 



A. B. MacDowall (Met. Zeitschr., XXI., 

 1904, 77-Y8) believes that during the last sixty 

 years sunspot maxima have been accompanied 

 in England by higher temperatures. He thus 

 takes a view directly opposed to that of Kop- 

 pen and Nordmann, who believe that the 

 temperatures are higher (in the tropics) dur- 

 ing sunspot minima. MacDowall also pub- 

 lishes curves of pressure at Ben Nevis Ob- 

 servatory and of the moon's phases, in which 

 he considers the coincidence sufficiently 

 marked to lead to a belief of cause and effect, 

 and curves of relative humidity at Greenwich 

 and of the moon's phases, which seem to him 

 similarly related. 



The Deutsche Seewarte (Hamburg) has 

 begun the publication of a pilot chart, to be 

 issued quarterly, of the North and Baltic Seas. 

 The same institution has also lately begun to 



issue charts showing for 8 a.m. each day the 

 distribution of pressure over the North At- 

 lantic between Europe and North America, 

 and also the force and direction of the wind. 

 These charts are published as soon as possible 

 after date. 



Sir John Eliot, lately at the head of the 

 Indian Meteorological Department, gives it 

 as his opinion, as quoted in Nature, Vol. 69, 

 538, that ' the next development of weather 

 study will almost certainly be in the direction 

 of international or world meteorology, and its 

 relation to the phenomena of sunspots and 

 terrestrial magnetism.' 



Two recent studies on the vertical distribu- 

 tion of temperature in the free air are the 

 following : E. Assmann, ' The Temperature of 

 the Air above Berlin,' translated in Monthly 

 Weather Review, XXXH., 1904, 177-180; L. 

 T. de Bort, ' Decroissance de la Temperature 

 avec la Hauteur dans la Eegion de Paris,' 

 del et Terre, XXIV., 1904, 579-583. 



The Prussian Meteorological Institute has 

 issued a new (second) revised edition of its 

 ' Anleitung zur Anstellung und Berechnung 

 meteorologischer Beobachtungen.' The first 

 part deals with observations at second and 

 third order stations. E. DeO. Ward. 



Harvard Univeesity. 



STOMACH STONES AND FOOD OF 

 PLESIOSAURS. 



In a recent paper* on North American 

 Plesiosaurs, Dr. S. W. Williston, in discussing 

 the probable significance of the pebbles so 

 often found associated with plesiosaur re- 

 mains, says : " What the use of these pebbles 

 was I will not venture to say. They may 

 have served as a sort of weight to regulate the 

 specific gravity of the animals or they may 

 have been swallowed accidentally. If, as I 

 believe probable, the plesiosaurs were in the 

 habit of feeding upon invertebrate animals, 

 seeking such in the shallow muddy bottoms, 

 the pebbles may have been taken with the 

 food unintentionally. I doubt this, however. 

 I may add that all specimens do not reveal 

 similar pebbles." 



• Field Columbian Museum Publication num- 

 ber 73, page 75. 



