April 14, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



693 



condition of the animal depends upon past 

 weather conditions, and upon the food supply 

 which those conditions have furnished, rather 

 than upon future weather. The best that can 

 be done at the present time is to make fore- 

 casts for one or two days in advance, and 

 occasionally for three or four days. The fu- 

 ture advance will depend upon a closer study 

 of atmospheric pressure conditions over large 

 areas, and of the influences which bring about 

 normal or abnormal distribution of pressure. 



THE LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY OF WINNIPEG IN 

 WINTER. 



In a recent number of Nature (March 9, 

 1905) reference is made to some interesting 

 electrical and other effects of the dry air of 

 Winnipeg in winter, as reported by Professor 

 Buller, of the University of Manitoba. The 

 common experiment designed to show the pres- 

 ence of water vapor in the atmosphere, which 

 is performed by exposing calcium chloride, has 

 to be done in a damp-chamber. The sub- 

 stance shows no apparent signs of deliques- 

 cence even after some weeks' exposure to the 

 ordinary air. 



JELINEK's meteorological INSTRUCTIONS. 



A FIFTH edition of Jelinek's valuable ' An- 

 leitung zu meteorologischen Beobachtungen ' 

 has been issued, under the direction of Dr. J. 

 M. Pemter, the director of the Austrian 

 Meteorological Institute. The fourth edition 

 was dated 1903, and that, together with the 

 third (1884), was revised by Dr. Hann. There 

 are many admirable handbooks of instructions 

 for meteorological observers, but this one has 

 always stood in the front rank, and in its new 

 edition, with many illustrations, is thoroughly 

 up to date in every particular. 



hann's lehrbuch der meteorologie. 

 A new edition of Hann's invaluable * Lehr- 

 buch der Meteorologie ' is on the way, the first 

 part being already issued. There is no need 

 of pointing out that the new edition will be 

 thoroughly up to date, and that no teacher or 

 student of meteorology can afford to do with- 

 out it. It will consist of about six parts. 

 Not the least of the many important additions 

 will be the extension of the charts so as to 



include the recent important Antarctic dis- 

 coveries. 



a new rain gauge. 

 The Meteorologische Zeitschrift for Janu- 

 ary, 1905, contains a description of a new 

 form of rain gauge designed by W. Gallen- 

 kampf, of Munich. The unsatisfactory char- 

 acter of the record made by the ordinary self- 

 recording gauge, which does not show the 

 details of rainfall sufficiently well, has led to 

 the construction of a gauge from which the 

 rainfall drops. Each drop falls on one end 

 of a delicately-balanced arm, which descends 

 under the weight, closes a circuit, and thus 

 the fall of one drop is recorded. So detailed 

 is the record that the rainfall curve can be 

 plotted on the basis of the number of drops 

 which fall from the gauge in half a minute, 

 and these curves show clearly that the or- 

 dinary shower is very variable in its intensity, 

 these smaller variations not being shown on 

 the usual rain-gauge record. A number of 

 curves illustrate the article, and throw a new 

 light on the way in which our rain falls. 



THE micro-barograph. 



In the Quarterly Journal of the Royal 

 Meteorological Society, Vol. XXXI., 1905, 

 pp. 39-52, Dr. W. N. Shaw and Mr. W. H. 

 Dines describe an apparatus called the ' Micro- 

 Barograph,' which has been designed to mag- 

 nify the minor fluctuations and at the same 

 time to disentangle them from the general 

 barometric surges. The causes which suggest 

 themselves as likely to produce temporary 

 fluctuations of the barometric curves are the 

 following: (1) Atmospheric billows passing 

 along surfaces where there is discontinuity 

 in density, in a manner similar to ocean 

 waves; (2) the passage of minute whirls, or 

 cyclonic depressions of small dimensions; (3) 

 variations of pressure due to the attraction or 

 repulsion produced by electric stress as masses 

 of air at different potential pass by; (4) the 

 mechanical effects of wind, and (5) the me- 

 chanical effects of the rapid condensation of 

 aqueous vapor. 



NOTES. 



The effect of a severe drought upon meteor- 

 ological observations is seen in the 'Report' 



