284 F Waldo — Contributions to Dynamical Meteorology. 



thinks that an important reason for the incompleteness of 

 Dove's theory was that the doctrine of the conservation of 

 force had not then been established The author then proceeds 

 to account for the low pressure at the poles, and also the for- 

 mation of "maxima" and "minima" and other local differ- 

 ences of air pressure. 



No. Jf and No. 5. — Dr. Kitao, the author of these two pa- 

 pers, which are really a single memoir published in two parts, 

 is professor of physics and mathematics in the Imperial Acad- 

 emy of Forestry and Agriculture at Tokio. I have not been 

 able to obtain a copy of No 4 (Part I.), and can therefore, give 

 only a surmise as to the value of this portion, basing my views 

 on an examination of No. 5 (Part II.). It was with curiosity, 

 which however rapidly changed to surprise and admiration, 

 that I took up this paper. Coming as it does from a Japanese, 

 whose name had not been previously connected with meteor- 

 ology (so far as I am aware), this paper, treating of the most 

 difficult branch of meteorology in such a manner as to place it 

 in the front rank among those in which the principles of 

 mechanics are applied to the motions of the atmosphere, should 

 receive the careful attention which it deserves. The method 

 of reasoning adopted by the author is one that would naturally 

 commend itself to a mathematical scholar who had mastered 

 modern methods of hydrodynamical analysis, such as is to be 

 found in the works of Thomson and Tait, and a few Continen- 

 tal fext books. While I am not prepared to enter into details 

 as to my reasons for thinking so, yet it appears to me that 

 although this paper is probably of great theoretical value, and it 

 will be found very suggestive to the student of meteorology, 

 yet its full practical value has yet to be shown. As a logical 

 mathematical development of the general theory of the motions 

 of an atmosphere it is certainly a remarkable chain of reason- 

 ing. In No. 5 (Part II.) no mention is made of what has been 

 done by other investigators in the same field, and in fact the 

 author seems to have worked out the whole matter for himself. 

 The methods of analysis certainly show great originality of 

 conception and adaptation, and it is to be hoped that the whole 

 paper will soon be republished in some form accessible to a 

 wide circle of students, Unfortunately, however, so far not 

 even a review of the work has been given to meteorolo- 

 gists. The divisions of No. 5 are as follows : Chapter VIII, 

 Regions of whirls for straight-lined isobars ; chapter IX, plur- 

 ality of whirl formations in the earth's atmosphere; chapter 

 X, motions of the region of whirls itself; chapter XI, change 

 in the wind direction, wind force and the air pressure, for a 

 given exterior point for a double formation of whirls. There 

 is space here only to mention one or two of the results obtained 



