284 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 504. 



would give no positive information as to how 

 much the leaves and stems of plants collect, 

 or how much of the water falls to the ground 

 in such a way that the roots of the plants may 

 utilize it, and that the chief benefit which 

 delicate plants on the California coast obtain 

 from the fogs is probably in the protection 

 which the fogs afford against the heat of the 

 sun. 



CLIMATE OP SOUTH AFRICA. 



J. R. Sutton, meteorologist of the DeBeers 

 Consolidated Mines at Kimberley, South 

 Africa, has published a paper on ' The Deter- 

 mination of Mean Results from Observations 

 made at Second-Order Stations on the Table- 

 land of South Africa ' ( Bept. So. Afr. Assoc. 

 Adv. 8ci., Vol. I., Apr.il, 1903). The observa- 

 tions in Cape Colony are usually made at 8 

 A.M., Colony mean time, but other hours are 

 used at other stations. It was in order that 

 all these observations may be compared with 

 one another that the present paper was pre- 

 pared. The author has taken the observations 

 at Kimberley, which are very complete, and 

 has calculated from them the corrections 

 which are needed in order to reduce the hourly 

 means of all elements to the true means for 

 each month and for the year. 



CLIMATE OF SIERRA LEONE. 



That Sierra Leone has some right to the 

 unenviable title of ' the white man's grave ' 

 is evidenced by the fact that in the nineteenth 

 century no less than eighteen governors or 

 acting governors of the colony died at their 

 posts or on their way home. This fact is 

 brought out in a recent book on Sierra Leone 

 by Major J. J. Crooks, who was governor at 

 three different times (' A History of the Col- 

 ony of Sierra Leone, Western Africa,' 1903). 

 Major Crooks admits that ' in spite of sanitary 

 arrangements now in force ' the climate ' can 

 not be said to improve greatly.' 



THUNDER-STORMS AND PRESSURE. 



A. J. MoNNE, the editor of the new Dutch 

 meteorological journal, Hemel en Damphring, 

 has recently discussed the question of the fre- 

 quency of thunder-storms under different con- 

 ditions of pressure, and finds that (in Hol- 



land) thunder-storms occur most frequently 

 when the pressure is slightly below the normal. 

 Similar conclusions have also been reached by 

 Prestel and Prohaska. It should, however, be 

 noted that mountain thunder-storms often oc- 

 cur locally during hot, clear, anticyclonic 

 days, when the pressure is high. 



SIROCCO IN TUNIS. 



Hann calls attention {Met. Zeitsclir., 1904, 

 44-45) to a temperature of 104.9° Fahr. 

 registered at 9 p.m., August 27, 1902, at the 

 meteorological station in Tunis. This re- 

 markably high reading was made during a 

 sirocco. The relative humidity at the same 

 time was five per cent. The sirocco was ac- 

 companied by a fall of fine red dust and a 

 few drops of warm rain. 



BIRD MIGRATION IN ENGLAND. 



Studies of the migration of birds made at 

 the Kentish Lightship, in the English Chan- 

 nel, in the autumn of 1903, by Mr. Eagle 

 Clarke, show that the immediate cause of the 

 great migratory movements was a fall of tem- 

 perature in the area of origin. When this 

 fall occurs, the instinct to migrate appears 

 to be suddenly aroused, and the movement 

 takes place even under the most unfavorable 

 meteorological conditions. The direction of 

 the wind appears to have no influence. 



THE WIND. 



* Le Vent dans I'Antiquite ' is the title of 

 a paper by E. Hooreman, in Ciel et Terre for 

 July 1, which may be of interest to many 

 readers who are not especially concerned with 

 meteorology. The subdivisions of this dis- 

 cussion are : Ancient theories regarding the 

 origin and nature of wind; names of the 

 winds; climatic characteristics of winds; the 

 tower of the winds at Athens. 



E. DeC. Ward. 



Harvard Univeesity. 



A STATION FOR THE STUDY OF BIRD LIFE. 

 Articles of incorporation have just been 

 drawn looking to the establishment on a per- 

 manent foundation of the ' Worthington So- 

 ciety for the Investigation of Bird Life.' The 



