400 
as may be inferred from the generally poor 
representation of clouds in woodcuts and other 
illustrations, there must be quite enough be- 
sides sketching to occupy one’s mind while a 
tornado is sweeping past. But now that Mr. 
Finley has shown that a tornado will almost 
certainly be harmless when seen in the south- 
east, is it too much to hope that some well- 
trained, artistic, and self-possessed observer 
may secure drawings of the swinging funnel- 
cloud in its several phases, from which finished 
and characteristic illustrations can be made at 
leisure afterwards? A house or tree of known 
height, and at known distance, would give a 
unit of angular measure from which the alti- 
tude and diameter of the funnel could be de- 
termined after the distance to the ordinarily 
well-marked track is discovered. We should 
be indeed very glad, if the coming summer 
were to pass by without visits from tornadoes ; 
but if they come, as is most likely, let as much 
be found out about them as possible. Water- 
spouts are in the same need of good portrait- 
ure, and an observant voyager in equatorial 
seas can do good service by bringing home 
accurate pictures of them. Is there not here 
a good opportunity for the numerous amateur 
photographers to turn their experimentation 
to good purpose? A series of instantaneous 
photographs would be especially interesting ? 
A NEw motor is said to have been brought 
out in New-York City, that hot-bed of schemes 
for making money out of the unwary. Itis a 
new form of bisulphide-of-carbon engine, this 
time, which is to revolutionize the world, and 
the stock of which is offered for sale, to the 
fortunate who are admitted to the ‘ ground- 
floor,’ at prices enormously below its real 
value, giving an opportunity to those favored 
ones to make the ‘ millions’ that are undoubt- 
edly in it. We are told of a triple thermic 
motor which is operated by the odorous fluid, 
and which is expected by the enthusiastic be- 
lievers in the wonderful invention to give 
‘¢ three times as much power from a steam- 
boiler used to evaporate the vapor as could be 
obtained from the same boiler by means of a 
SCIENCE. 
steam-engine.’’ Itis said that large sums haye — 
been paid for the stock of the new company — 
operating this machine by the ignorant capi- 
talist, who, sharp as he is when ‘ working his 
points ’ in Wall Street, — not having even the 
intelligence of the man who acted as his own 
lawyer, and seldom thinking of consulting an 
engineer of known integrity and good profes- 
sional standing, in a matter which demands 
at least the rudiments of an ordinary scientific 
training, — is often gulled with startling ease 
by the venders of ‘ Keeley motors,’ and pro- 
moters of similar schemes. 
Tue hydrographic office of our navy depart- 
ment has lately issued the first numbers of a 
set of monthly meteorological charts of the 
North Atlantic, containing the results of many 
thousand observations on the winds and other 
atmospheric phenomena in form for giving 
practical information to the navigator. These 
are not to be confounded with the monthly pilot- 
charts begun in December last, of which men- 
tion has already been made in our columns, but 
are vastly more thorough. Indeed, the two 
series have about the relation to each other 
that weather has to climate. One is designed 
chiefly to spread information concerning recent 
changes in lights, buoys, etc., and to gather 
and record temporary conditions of the ocean : 
the other aims to give in detail the average and 
consequently permanent elements of maritime 
meteorology for every five degrees square of the 
ocean and for every month. The charts now 
published are for March, April, and May: the 
rest of the set will probably follow in the course 
of the year. Every one interested in the growth 
of our mercantile marine, as well as in the im- 
provement of our navy, must rejoice to see this — 
action of the hydrographic office toward the 
maintenance of the wide reputation for mete- _ 
orological work on the ocean, well earned in — 
Lieut. Maury’s time; and we trust that the — 
series of charts now begun for the North — 
Atlantic may be followed by others of equal — 
detail for the other oceans, towards which a — 
great amount of available material has been — 
accumulated. . 
