508 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 511. 



establishment of a meteorological laboratory 

 at the high school in Chattanooga, Tenn., a 

 citizen, whose name is not given, having pro- 

 vided the means for the purchase of the neces- 

 sary meteorological apparatus. 



GERMAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The tenth meeting of the Deutsche Meteoro- 

 logische Gesellschaft was held in Berlin, on 

 April 7-9, 1904, and an aecoimt of the pro- 

 ceedings, with abstracts of the papers read, 

 is found in the July number of the Meteoro- 

 logische Zeitschrift. The papers of most gen- 

 eral interest were the following : The influence 

 of forests upon climate, by J. Schubert, in 

 which the results obtained recently at the 

 forest experiment station in Eberswalde, 

 Prussia, were discussed. The temperature is 

 found to average lower in the forest than in 

 the open, the maximum cooling effect coming 

 in September, at the 8 a.m. observation. The 

 relative humidity in the forest may exceed 

 that in the open by seven per cent. O. 

 Steffens showed a new form of snow gauge 

 (' ombrograph ') in which an oil lamp is in- 

 cluded and the snow is melted. P. Polls dis- 

 cussed the distribution of precipitation in cy- 

 clones and anticyclones at Breslau and on the 

 Schneekoppe, this being a scheme of investi- 

 gation which might well be extended. W. 

 Meinardus considered the changes in tempera- 

 ture of the ocean surface off the west coast of 

 Europe, a subject to which he has already 

 given much attention. 



NOTES. 



The 1904 volume of the Annuaire Meteoro- 

 logique of the Eoyal Observatory of Belgium 

 contains the usual meteorological summaries, 

 together with the following papers of general 

 interest : H. Arctowski : ' Apergu des Resul- 

 tats Meteorologiques de I'Hivernage antarc- 

 tique de la Belgica ' ; E. Vanderlinden : ' Le Tir 

 centre la Grele,' a subject which is rapidly 

 assuming a less and less prominent place in 

 the minds of scientific men. The latter paper 

 contains a full bibliography. 



The Yearbook of the Department of Agri- 

 culture for 1903 (Washington, 1904), contains 

 the following contributions of meteorological 



interest: James Kenealy, 'Weather Bureau 

 Stations and their Duties ' ; J. Warren Smith, 

 ' Relation of Precipitation to Yield of Corn ' ; 

 II. J. Cox, ' Use of Weather Bureau Records 

 in Court.' 



Weather Bureau Bulletin No. SJ^ (1904) is 

 a reprint of an article on climate, written by 

 the chief of the weather bureau for the ' Ency- 

 clopedia Americana.' The title is ' Climate : its 

 Physical Basis and Controlling Factors.' In the 

 bibliography one can not help noticing the 

 omission of Hann's ' Handbueh der Klimatol- 

 ogie.' 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous OollectionSj 

 Quarterly Issue, Vol. 2, Part I., 1904, contains 

 ' The Absorption of Water Vapor in the Infra- 

 Red Solar Spectrum,' by F. E. Fowle, Jr. 



R. DeC. Ward. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



A LARGE number of the eminent European 

 scientific men and scholars, who came to this 

 counti-y to attend the International Congress 

 of Arts and Science, at St. Louis, have been 

 visiting eastern cities and universities. They 

 were received at Washington by President 

 Roosevelt and entertained by Professor Simon 

 Newcomb, the president of the congress ; at 

 Cambridge, they were entertained by Professor 

 Miinsterberg, vice-president of the congress. 

 Many of them have also visited Johns Hop- 

 kins, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Columbia, 

 Yale and other institutions. 



Doctorates of science have been conferred 

 by the University of Leeds as follows : Lord 

 Kelvin, Lord Rosse, chancellor of the Univer- 

 sity of Dublin, Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Sir 

 James Kitson, M.P., Sir William Henry Broad- 

 bent, Sir Arthur W. Riicker, principal of 

 London University, Dr. Thorpe, C.B., director 

 of the government laboratories, Mr. Claudius 

 G. Wheelhouse, LL.D., president of the council 

 of the British Medical Association, Mr. Jon- 

 athan Hutchinson, Mr. J. Pridgin Teal, Dr. 

 Hughlings Jackson, Professor Miall, Dr. 

 Tempest Anderson and Professor A. W. Mayo 

 Robson. 



A commission has been appointed by the 

 New York Board of Health to study the causes 

 of pneumonia, with a view to checking the 



