February 10, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



281 



receive anywhere from $1,200 down to $20, 

 the average last year being $328; thus it is 

 seen that a large part of the teaching force of 

 Harvard College is composed of men who re- 

 ceive salaries that would not tempt men to 

 become conductors and motormen on a street 

 railway, and Harvard (miserabile dictu) is 

 probably better off than any other American 

 college. 



These salaries from the point of view of 

 prosperous Harvard graduates are positively 

 startling, especially if one considers the kind 

 of people with whom a teacher necessarily rubs 

 elbows, if he holds a position in the service of 

 a college. Of course, men don't teach at Har- 

 vard or at any other American college of high 

 standing for the mere sake of money. Any- 

 body who is competent to be a full professor 

 at Harvard is capable of securing several times 

 the income of his professorship in some other 

 line of work. The list of teachers contains 

 the names of countless men of world-wide 

 reputation, who by merely signifying that they 

 would accept better positions could step at 

 once into places with a pecuniary return of 

 three, four or even five times what they now 

 obtain. 



As has been said, it is probably true that in 

 Colonial days the Harvard teacher was virtu- 

 ally on a financial level with the successful 

 lawyer and the prosperous butcher or baker, 

 as to-day he certainly is not. Until recently, 

 too, the level of salaries in Harvard college 

 rose somewhat rapidly from generation to gen- 

 eration, though never keeping pace with the 

 advances in the emolument of the other pro- 

 fessions and trades which college graduates 

 enter. — The New York Evening Post. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



KITE METEOROLOGY OVER LAKE CONSTANCE. 



In a recent note under the above heading, 

 reference was made to the observations car- 

 ried on by Dr. Hergesell * during the years 

 1900, 1902 and 1903' on the Lake of Con- 

 stance. The compiler of these ' Notes ' de- 

 sires to correct that statement, for the reason 

 that rto observations were made in 1900. The 

 following quotation from Dr. Hergesell's re- 

 port to the International Meteorological Com- 



mittee in 1903 makes the situation clear : " In 

 July, 1900, I had the idea of using the speed 

 of a boat to correct the wind conditions, and 

 I made some experiments with a motor boat 

 (on the Lake of Constance), but without rais- 

 ing an instrument. In the month of August, 

 1901, Mr. Rotch, in America, was the first to 

 lift an instrument in nearly calm weather by 

 using a steamboat which he could manoeuver 

 at will. The proposal of Mr. Rotch * * * 

 led me to recommence my experiments on 

 the Lake of Constance (in June, 1902)." 



WIND CHARTS OF THE SOUTH ATLANTIC. 



The Hydrographic Department of the Brit- 

 ish Admiralty has recently published a volume 

 of monthly wind charts of the South Atlantic 

 Ocean, prepared by the marine branch of the 

 Meteorological Office. The region embraced 

 by these charts extends from the equator to 

 latitude 65° south. Nearly a million sets of 

 observations were used in the compilation. 

 The results are shown by means of wind roses 

 in 5° squares. Isobars and isotherms are also 

 drawn, and numerous notes concerning the 

 climatic features along the coast of Africa 

 and of South America are included. It may 

 here be noted that fogs seldom occur north of 

 latitude 30° except near land, and that the 

 southwestern part of the ocean is the only 

 region in which ice is ordinarily found. 



SUNSPOTS AND RAINFALL. 



Mr. H. I. Jensen, of Sydney, New 

 South Wales, discusses the relations be- 

 tween solar and terrestrial phenomena in the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Society of New 

 South Wales, Vol. 38. In general the author 

 agrees with the results obtained by Sir Nor- 

 man and Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer regarding the 

 connection existing between solar and meteor- 

 ological variations, but he inclines to the opin- 

 ion that the epochs of sun-spot maxima are 

 generally the periods of excessive rainfall. 

 One point — an important one — upon which 

 Mr. Jensen insists is the need of laying more 

 emphasis upon geographical position when the 

 meteorological conditions of any place are 

 considered. 



