460 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. VI., No. 146. 



them have the peculiarity of being immediately by 

 the sea, and none are so frequently visited by 

 storms. Hourly observations of the usual meteor- 

 ological elements are taken by Mr. Omond, the 

 superintendent, and his two assistants ; and, if the 

 observatory be maintained as well as it has been 

 begun, its records must yield results of the great- 

 est value in the study of the weather. Unfor- 

 tunately, its support still depends only on general 

 subscription. Among the generalizations thus far 

 made for Ben Nevis by Mr. Buchan, secretary of 

 the Scottish society, we may quote the following : 



are prevailingly cold, on account of the rapid loss 

 of heat by radiation from the ground through the 

 clear, dry air. Mountains, therefore, have a 

 meteorology of their own, and one that is well 

 worth studying. 



THE ORIGIN OF MEDIAEVAL UNIVER- 

 SITIES. 



An important contribution to the history of 

 higher education has been made in Germany by 

 the publication of a work ^ on ' The mediaeval uni- 



BEN NEVIS METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORY, {London graphic.) 



The mean velocity of the wind is greater at night 

 than at day, this being the reverse of the variation 

 found at low-level stations, but in accordance 

 with the results of other mountain observatories 

 and with theoretical deductions ; diurnal varia- 

 tions of temperature are small, the change from 

 warm to cold weather being very largely depend- 

 ent on the passage of cyclonic storms ; the tem- 

 perature is abnormally high during the passage of 

 an anticyclone, or area of high atmospheric press- 

 ure, in which the air descends from great alti- 

 tudes, and is warmed by compression ; this, like 

 the variation of the wind, being the reverse of 

 what obtains at lower levels, where anticyclones 



versities prior to 1400.' Its author is unterarcMvar 

 of the papal see, P. Heinrich Denifle, and he has 

 brought the thorough methods of research which 

 are characteristic of the Germans to the discussion 

 of the ample stores of information which are to be 

 found in the archives of Eome, Florence, Paris, 

 Leipzig, Munich, Erlangen, and other ancient 

 seats of learning. The volume before us includes 

 more than eight hundred pages, but it is only one- 

 thii-d of the proposed work. It discusses the origin 

 of the universities in the middle ages ; and their 

 organization and constitution are to be considered 



Die universitdten des mittelalters bis 1400. Von P. Hein- 

 rich Denifle. Band i. Berlin, Weidmann, 1S85. 



