142 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Aug. 10, 18 



present weather is connected with undue prevalence of 

 Atlantic weather. 



This is driven to our islands by the numerous cyclonettes,or 

 minor depressions, that have crossed them for some weeks at 

 various latitudes, and carried with them clouds full of rain, 

 which have been discharged on our coasts and hills. 



In the North Atlantic Ocean the wettest months were 

 January, June, and September, and the driest months were 

 February, March, and April, and the wettest seasons were the 

 autumn, and driest were the spring. 



The wetness of the present July may therefore probably be 

 explained by the rain-clouds of June and July at sea being 

 wafted by the south-west winds from the North Atlantic 

 Ocean over, towards, and across these islands. 



These clouds of aqueous vapour are now rushing rapidly 

 north-eastward to fill the dry vacancies in the air of the Arctic 

 regions, coincident with the late draughts in northern lati- 

 tudes, and these will continue to pass onwards until the 

 saturation of the summer atmosphere takes place. 



This may be accomplished by next month, August, when 

 finer •weather may be expected, as is usually the case at sea 

 when but little rain falls, and the winds subside, and the sun 

 is less obscured by clouds. 



Anti-cyclonic weather will then advance from the south and 

 from the Continent, with south and east winds, and a drier 

 air will follow, as the breezes will then blow from the heated 

 plains of Europe instead of from the warm surface of the 

 Atlantic seas'. 



In contrast to the wet weather of June in the North Atlantic 

 Ocean, and of July on land in Britain, it may be stated that 

 June is a drier month in South Atlantic seas, and July is drier 

 still than in the North Atlantic. 



This year there has been exceptional weather at the Cape 

 — much as it has been in Britain — and there April, May, and 

 June proved to have been unusually wet, as in this country, 

 on land, they have been unusually dry. 



There would therefore appear to have been going on some 

 kind of reciprocity, or give and take, between the weathers of 

 the temperate zones of the North and South Atlantic 

 Oceans, whereby the wet of one has been transferred to the 

 other. 



Easterly winds this month have been equally wet as the 

 westerly ones, as they are seen to be only segments of the 

 same circle of damp winds that form the other parts of the 

 cyclonettes, or minor depressions, and are then called westerly 

 winds, and both come from the Atlantic regions. 



July, 1888. W. V. Black, F.R.M.S. 



ALLEGED SHOWER OF FROGS. 

 A paragraph is going the round of the papers to the effect 

 that, after very heavy and prolonged rain at Leamington, 

 " the Tachbrook-road was covered with thousands of small 

 frogs, which had fallen with the rain." Whilst fully admitting 

 that small living animals have been carried aloft by whirl- 

 winds and deposited elsewhere, I should suggest that the 

 paragraph in question is a case of jumping at a conclusion. 

 It is well known that when the ground is drenched with rain 

 and the air saturated with moisture, frogs — especially young 

 frogs — are apt to leave the ditches and the pools and hop 

 about on what is ordinarily dry land. I should hesitate to 

 admit that they had fallen with the rain, unless they were 

 found on roofs or other localities out of their reach. 



A. O. N. 



"WHENCE COMES MAN?" 

 In the notice of my book, " Whence Comes Man ; from 

 Nature or from God?" in your issue of July 27th, there 

 occurs a strange mistake, which I trust you will do me the 

 justice to correct. 



The writer of the notice says : — " For example, he (myself) 

 quotes Spencer as follows : ' Self-existence, therefore, neces- 

 sarily means existence without a beginning ; and to form 

 a conception of self-existence is to form a conception of ex- 

 istence without a beginning. Now by no mental effort can 

 we do this. To conceive existence through infinite past time 

 implies the conception of infinite past time, which is an im- 

 possibility."' 



The writer of the notice then quotes a part of my comment 

 upon Mr. Spencer's assertion : — " When Mr. Spencer uses the 

 word ' conception,' he is evidently thinking not of ' concep- 

 tion,' but of 'experience.' Let us change the word 'concep- 

 tion ' to the word ' experience.' To ' experience ' existence, 

 through un-finite (it is so printed in my book) past time, im- 

 plies the ' experience ' of unfinite past time, which is an im- 

 possibility. Of course it is. But a conception of unfinite past 

 time is not. It is simply the thought of time -without limit : 

 and is simply what I call a ' private ' idea, the formation of 

 which presents no difficulty." 



It is on the last sentence that the mistake I ask to have 

 rectified occurs. Instead of the words "a private idea, 

 which is nonsense, the words in my book are " a privative 

 idea," that is, the affirmation of time without limits — the 

 "privation," or absence of limits. After having made such a 

 mistake, it is not surprising the writer should have accused 

 me of "rigmarole"! 



I may be allowed, I think, to add that when the writer of 

 the notice spoke of what he called the "astounding conclu- 

 sion — the drift of the book — expressed in the statement of 

 his belief that space is God," he might have stated at least 

 some of the grounds of that conclusion, or at least the con- 

 cluding words of my " belief,'' that space is the mode i?i which 

 the Infinite God manifests Himself to us, and enables us to 

 understand howit is that in Him we can " live," 'and " move," 

 and "have our being:" how the Finite can " co-exist" With 

 the Infinite, and the Infinite remain Infinite ; how additions 

 can be made to the sum of things, and the Infinite be Infinite 

 as before. Arthur John Bell. 



Easton Court, Chagford, Devon, Aug. 6th, 1888. 



METEOROLOGICAL CONUNDRUMS. 

 Doubtless some of your readers will have noticed that 

 when a season takes up a very decided character all the ordi- 

 nary signs of a change of weather lose their importance. In 

 1879, and again in the present year, the indications of fine 

 weather, such as a rising barometer, a rosy sunset, a grey, low 

 dawn, a lofty flight of gnats and of swallows, were merely 

 succeeded by wet and cold. On the contrary, in such seasons 

 as 1868 the ordinary portents of wet and cold had no mean- 

 ing. Now I should like to ask, what is the cause of a season 

 taking up some special character ? How can we ascertain 

 the duration of such a state of things ? Again, in Britain a 

 thunderstorm almost invariably "breaks up the weather"— i.e., 

 is followed by northerly winds and a fall of temperature. Is 

 the storm the cause of the cold, or is it an effect of the. 

 approach of the latter ? Would-be Weather-wise.. 



NOISES ACCOMPANYING AURORAL DISPLAYS'. 



In reply to your correspondent, Mr. T. Todd, a number ot 

 people believe they have heard sounds accompanying the 

 aurora borealis. The question has been carefully considered 

 by Mr. Sophus Tromholt, who in March, 1885, despatched 

 some thousand circulars to various parts of Norway, con- 

 taining different queries regarding the aurora, and amongst 

 them the following : — Have 3'ou or your acquaintances ever- 

 heard any sound during aurora, and, in this case, when and in 

 what manner ? He received answers to these queries from 

 144 persons. Of these, 92 (or 64 per cent.) believed in the ex- 

 istence of the aurora sound, and 53 (36 per cent.) of these 

 again state they heard it themselves, whilst the other 39 cite 

 testimonials from other people ; only 21(15 per cent.) declare 

 they never heard the sound or know anything about it, and 

 the other 31 (22 per cent.) have not noticed the query at all. 

 There are thus 92 affirmations against 12 negations. The 

 sound is described in these answers in the following manner : 



Sizzling (3). 



Breaking or sizzling. 



An intermediate sound be- 

 tween sizzling and whiz- 

 zling, sometimes as if a 

 piece of paper were torn. 



A kind of sound as when you 

 tear silk ; sizzling, th — ss. 



Soft whizzing, alternative 



with sizzling. 



Hissing and crackling. 



Partly hissing, partly as a 

 kind of rushing whiz. 



Whispering and glistering. 



Strong whiz (3). 



Whiz or whipering. 



Whiz, or distant, soft, con- 

 tinuous whizzing. 



Constant Reader. 



