546 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 



In the appendix Mr. Scott has given a notice of some late 

 easterly storms, which is an attempt to classify them and possibly 

 discover traces of their origin. The number of storms investigated 

 is only twenty-five, evidently far too few to allow of important 

 deductions being drawn, but some very interesting facts come out 

 in the discussion, and we hope that the paper may be followed by 

 others of a similar statistical character. 



The price of the Report is very moderate, being only 5s. a 

 number. It is published by Stanford. 



The Third Annual Eeport of the Committee has also lately 

 appeared. It shows steady progress in the three departments of 

 the operations of the office — Ocean Meteorology, Storm Warnings, 

 and Land Meteorology of these islands. With regard to the last 

 of these we regret to see that Dr. Stewart has found himself 

 obliged to resign his position as Secretary to the Committee. His 

 services in organizing the system of self-recording observation has 

 been of extreme value to the cause of meteorology in England. 



In Part II. of the Report we have the description of some new 

 instruments — Mr. Galton's Pantagraph, above noticed; Beckley's 

 Self-registering Rain-gauge, which is to be introduced at all the 

 observatories ; and Dr. Miller's Deep-sea Thermometer, to which we 

 have alluded in a previous number. 



The last number of the ' Journal of the Scottish Meteorological 

 Society ' is mainly occupied with a paper by Mr. D. Milne Home, 

 " Suggestions for Increasing the Supply of Spring Water at Malta, 

 &c." In our notice of the last paper by the same author, in 

 No. XXY. of this Journal, we said, " The paper consists of a series 

 of extracts from the reports of various observers," and the same 

 words will apply exactly to that now under consideration. Mr. 

 Home in his remarks suggests the old and well-known remedy for 

 local drought, viz. extensive plantations. It seems rather a pity 

 that when the Society, as we learn from another part of the journal, 

 is endeavouring to obtain funds from the Government, any portion 

 of its means should be expended in publishing papers on foreign, or 

 at least colonial, meteorology. 



In our last number we noticed Dr. R. Angus Smith's paper 

 " On the Detection and Estimation of the Impurities of Air, by 

 the Analysis of Rain Water, and by Washing Bottles of Air." His 

 Sixth Report, as Alkali Inspector under the Board of Trade, has 

 just appeared, and contains much valuable information on the 

 subject, which is, however, too foreign to meteorology to require 

 further notice here. 



Mr. Blanford, Meteorological Reporter to the Government of 

 Bengal, has published a paper in the ' Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society/ " On the Relations of Irregularities of Barometrical Pres- 

 sure to the Monsoon Rainfall of 1868-9." He finds that in both 



