278 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



would be pleasing for a scientific inquirer to seek to trace this curious air-wave 

 around the world. But if he should write to the chief office very little satisfac- 

 tion could be obtained even if he gained permission to v/rite himself personally 

 to each of the observers asking for data. No doubt the weather-bureau is a 

 splendid institution and if it don't hit the weather quite right at the place where 

 the reader chances to be, yet other cities are more favored we will believe. 

 Then it is educating a fine lot of men to be soldiers, and if they do not know 

 much of meteorology that is no disadvantage since out of the service meteorology 

 is not a thing any one can live by. 



Scientific men are decided as to the true method of predicting the track of 

 barometric depressions. An example like this of a real wave of unexceptional 

 magnitude which left its mark so definitely that no natural variation could obscure 

 it, is like a case where a natural philosopher has in his own hands an experiment 

 which can prove or disprove a world-accepted theory. At present the best 

 theories of meteorological action have not received the certain sanction of un-. 

 doubted fact. Ferrel's analysis, mathematical and profound, prove just this, that 

 if true only one man in a miUion can understand and apply it, only one man in 

 a milUon be a capable meteorologist. Certainly no army officer. Decidedly no 

 enlisted man quahfied and honored that he allows himself to be absorbed by 

 trifling details and never rises to the grasp of principles. In military code all 

 things are equally criminal as betokening insubordination. A hole in the end of 

 a glove, or an ink-spot on a form go down with equal merit of punishment as 

 shooting a comrade or missing an observation. 



But it would be cruel while General Hazen is hanging on to his position with 

 toe-nails and eye-lashes to say anything derogatory of his service when every 

 other foreign nation admits that the military organization is the only possible one 

 for efficient action. And this will be shown when the book shortly to be pub- 

 Ushed, upon this very volcanic air-wave shall be made public; materials for which 

 are now being collected by one of the lieutenants detailed for that service. Paro- 

 dying the old parody of "bring forth the cheese knife," we may cry "bring forth 

 a natural barometric wave {east moving) that can make 18,000 miles in twenty- 

 four hours," and prove that low barometers have any real existence at all. 



BOOK NOTICES, 



E OF Liszt : By Louis Nohl, translated from the German by Geo. P. Upton. 



izmo., pp. 197. Jansen, McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1884. For sale by M. 



H. Dickinson, $1.25. 



This is the fifth of the series of Biographies of Musicians published by this well- 

 known house. The preceding volumes are the lives of Mozart, Beethoven, 

 Haydn, and Wagner, all of which were well received by the public. 



