40 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 153 



the figure-piece of the bull-tamer, leaping upon the 

 back of the beast in full career, displays ! The 

 beautiful frieze made of slabs of alabaster, deco- 

 rated with sculptured ornaments and inlaid with 

 pieces of dark blue smalt, is most interesting, not 

 only for its intrinsic elegance, but for the confirma- 

 tion it has given to a conjecture of Helbig in ex- 

 planation of one of the Homeric puzzles, the 

 nature of the frieze of Jcyanos, which adorned the 

 palace of Alkinoos (Odyssey, vii. 86). This is the 

 substance which Mr. Gladstone supposed to have 

 been bronze, and which Mr. Evans, following the 

 general opinion, has reluctantly conceded to have 

 been dark blue steel, but which we now have every 

 reason to believe to have been a blue glass paste. 

 Another surprising discovery was the bath-room, 

 containing a fragment of a bathing-tub, made of 

 thick terra-cotta, and resembling in form similar 

 articles in use to-day. After such a substantiation 

 as this, of the numerous instances in the Homeric 

 poems where mention is made of the ' well- 

 polished bathing-tubs,' we may perhaps feel war- 

 ranted in believing that in the heroic age some- 

 times these were actually made of silver, like the 

 two which ' Polybus, w T ho dwelt in Thebes in 

 Egypt,' gave to Menelaus (Odyssey, iv. 128). 



Reluctantly we lay aside this interesting volume, 

 fully sharing in the regret expressed by Dr. Dorp- 

 feld at the fate that must speedily overtake much 

 of what has thus been brought to light after its 

 sleep of centuries in the lap of mother-earth. He 

 says that it is doomed to certain destruction, 

 although the Greek government intends to do all 

 in its power to protect the palace with a roof and 

 in other ways (p. 250). But even if the material 

 parts must perish, its teachings have been em- 

 balmed forever for posterity in this noble volume, 

 which, as we said at the outset, we owe to the 

 liberality and enthusiasm of Dr. Schliemann. 



WINTER ON MOUNT WASHINGTON. 



There are three distinct types of winter weather 

 on Mount Washington that offer good illustration 

 of the control of wind over temperature. The 

 most common, and certainly the one most fre- 

 Mucntlv associated witli the popular estimation of 

 the mountain's weather, appears with the westerly 

 or nor! I)- westerly winds of considerable strength 

 that blow between a centre of low barometric 

 pressure lingering over the provinces or in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, and a centre of high 

 pressure on the lakes or in the Ohio valley. The 

 sky is clear or fair, the wind blows fifty to eighty 

 or more miles an hour, and the temperature falls 

 to a point worthy of newspaper items. This is 

 the time of hardship for the observers in the 



signal-service station : clearing the anemometer 

 cups of the frost-work that forms on them is then 

 no pleasant task; but, if not cleared, the frost-work 

 fills the cups, and prevents their proper turning, 

 or they become so heavy that the centrifugal 

 force of their rapid whirling may tear them from 

 the axle. The cold is so intense and penetrating 

 with the high wind, that the stoves have to do 

 their utmost to keep the station habitable. A 

 conflagration at such a time would be almost 

 certain death to the men, for they could not 

 descend the mountain in such weather. 



On the 29th of last January there was a sample 

 of this type : a storm-centre had passed the day 

 before ; the wind shifted from south to north- 

 west, and rose to one hundred miles an hour, — 

 if the records in recurring round numbers can be 

 accepted as precise, — and at seven o'clock in the 

 morning the temperature was — 32°. At the same 

 time, the temperature at Boston was 0° ; at Port- 

 land, 2°; and at Montreal, — 9°. The cause of the 

 extreme cold on the mountain is, first, that its 

 winds come rapidly from the cold north-west, 

 without having time to warm up very much on 

 the way ; and, second, that they are forced to rise 

 more or less in passing over the mountain, and 

 thus are cooled by expansion about half a degree 

 for every hundred feet of ascent. In other words, 

 the cold is chiefly imported, but is partly a home 

 product. The temperature is not excessively low : 

 it is higher than the records give for the far 

 north-west, and much higher than the minima 

 known in Siberia ; but it is harder to bear on 

 account of the terrific w^inds that accompany it. 

 Residents in Montana and Siberia unite in having 

 a good word for the calm, dry cold of their frigid 

 winters, but no w^ord of praise for the windy 

 cold on Mount Washington appears in the signal- 

 service reports. Other examples of this type, 

 illustrated in the old reports and maps, are Dec. 

 30, 1873 ; Jan. 16, 17, 25, 26, 1874. 



The second type appears when the mountain 

 stands a moderate distance from a storm centre, 

 generally to the east or north of it. The tempera- 

 ture is then relatively high, and the weather 

 cloudy or rainy. Jan. 16, 1885, will serve for an 

 example of this. The storm-centre was then to 

 the west of the mountain, but not far away, as 

 the wind was from the south, sixty miles an hour. 

 It was snowing, and the air was nearly 'satu- 

 rated ' with vapor ; the air temperature at 7 a.m. 

 being 29°, and the dew-point 28°. At the same 

 time, the temperature at Boston was only 32°, 

 while that at Portland was 24°. Montreal failed 

 to report that morning, but was undoubtedly 

 colder still. Now, if there is any propriety in 

 averages, Mount Washington ought to be in win- 



