1870.] Meteorology. 413 



8. METEOROLOGY. 



The most important paper which we have to notice in this number 

 is one by Dr. Julius Hann, " On the Climate of the Upper Eegions of 

 the Alps," which appears in the c Journal of the Austrian Meteorolo- 

 gical Society.' The Swiss stations are situated in many instances at 

 considerable heights above the sea. Five of them are at a level 

 exceeding 6000 feet. The station of Hoch Obir, in Carinthia, is at 

 a similar height. However, the information derived from these 

 points gives us hardly any knowledge of the climate prevailing 

 above the snow-line, and the difficulties which presented themselves 

 in the way of obtaining accurate observations from such an elevated 

 region seemed almost insurmountable, until they were overcome by 

 M. Dollfuss. This gentleman succeeded in persuading three Swiss 

 guides to spend an entire year, from August 1865 to August 1866, 

 on the Pass of St. Theodule, under the Matterhorn. The level 

 of this station is all but 11,000 feet above the sea. 



The barometrical observations were made three times a-day, 

 while those of temperature, wind, and weather, were recorded eleven 

 times daily. 



The first point on which Dr. Hann touches is the extreme of 

 cold registered, which he finds to be only 6° * 5 F. The winter of 

 1865-6 was a warm one, but still the temperature just cited is un- 

 expectedly high for so elevated a station, considering that much 

 greater cold has been experienced at lower stations in Europe nearly 

 on the latitude of the Pass in question, e.g., — 12° * 5 at Geneva in 

 January, 1838, and — 20° at Prague in 1830. We need not refer 

 to the intense frost felt in corresponding latitudes in America, where, 

 in the State of New York, the mercury has been known to freeze. 



The self-registering minimum thermometers, which have been 

 placed on the summits of so many mountains by the members of 

 the Alpine Olub, have not yielded results at all commensurate with 

 the labour of depositing them in their resting places and subse- 

 quently reading them, so that we are driven to the ordinary records 

 at high levels to find a confirmation of the minimum observations 

 at St. Theodule. It is found to be universally true that the ex- 

 tremes of cold are registered not on the summits of the mountains 

 but in the valleys where the chilled air collects. 



The winter climate was on the whole cold, as the thermometer 

 never rose above 32° from November to April, but the weather was 

 very enjoyable notwithstanding. At the high level of their station 

 the observers found the intensity of the solar heat on a calm day to be 

 so great that they frequently were sitting in the sun in their shirt- 

 sleeves, when the thermometer in the shade was close to zero F. They 

 often noticed the snow melting when the observed temperature was 



2 p 2 



