110 MONTHLY WFA!CHFJ3 BEVIEW. APRIL, 1908
Data
.. .~ -
I
Mount Wilson. I $:t$.i$;’ Weather Burcau.
-
1906. h l n r conslanl.
February 15 ...........................................
............................................ October 15.
January 9 ..............................................
May 29. ............................... 2.008 October 13 ............................. 1.984
October 16 ............................. 2.043
NOTES FROM THE WEATHER BUREAU LIBRBRY.
By C, FITZHUOH TALMAN, Asalstnut Librarian.
METEOROLOGY IN ROUMllNIlL
Meteorologists will regret to learn that St. C. Hepites, who
for so many years has been the official head of meteorology
in Roumania, has severed his connection with the meteoro-
logical institute of that country, on account of a change in
its affiliations recently decided upon by the Roumanian Gov-
ernment.
The Meteorological Institute of Roumania was founded by
Hepites in 1884, and was attached to the Ministry of Agricul-
ture, Industry, Commerce, and Domains. At that time, in ad-
dition to ten rainfall stations, there were but three places in
Roumania at which meteorological observations wore carried
on. The number of stations is now over 400. In 1889 a
metrologicnl section was added to the institute. Seis-
mology, also, has been cultivated in recent years. The re-
sults of observations have been published, in French and
Roumanian, in a series of bulky yearbooks, besides other
periodical and occasional publications in great number, and
M. Hepites himself has been a most industrious writer upon
the meteorology of his country.
Last year M. Hepites retired from the active directorship,
in favor of M. I. St. Murat, and became honorary director,
retaining charge of the purely scientific work. He has now
left the institute altogether, on account of the transfer of the
meteorological section to the astronomical observatory con-
nected with the chair of astronomy at the University of Buk-
harest.
The section of weights and measures, of which M. Murat
continues to be director, has been transferred to a newly
organized Department of Industry and Commerce.
OBSERVATIONS BEQUN ON LAKE CONSTANCE
Dr. E. Kleinschmidt, late assistant in the Meteorologicsl
Service of Alsace-Lorraine, at Strassburg, is in charge of the
new kite station on Lake Constance, an account of which was
published in the February MONTHLY W E A T H ~ REVIEW, 1908,
p. 21. This station began work April 1, and is now making
observations every day, so far as conditions permit, with kites
and captive balloons. The results are communicated daily to
the Deutsche Seewarte, at Hamburg, and to the central mete-
orological stations of Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Baden, and
Alsace-Lorraine, for utilization in connection with the daily
weather forecasts.
CLIMATIU CHARTS OF CANADA.
The Weather Bureau has received a copy of the official
Atlas of Canada, prepared by the government geographer,
James White, and issued by the Canadian Department of the
Interior. Although published in 1906, it appears to have
escaped the attention of climatologists generally, until Peter-
manns Mitteilungen noticed it in the lest annual summary of
the literature of local climatology (54. Band, 1908, Heft 2).
Three plates of this atlas, viz, Nos. 35, 26, and 26A, are de-
voted to climate. The first gives isothermal charts for the
twelve months of the year; the second comprises isotherms
for the summer and for the year, precipitation and snowfall
charts (annual) for southern Canada, and annual and quarterly
isobarR (the latter unfortunately referring to the quarters of
the calendar year instead of the natural seasons); the third
gives seasonal charts of the average possible hours of sun-
shine, and a series of charts showing the number of days in
the year with mean temperature above 3 2 O , PO0, boo, 60°, and
70° F.
This is, we believe, the only ostensive series of climatic
charts yet issued for Canada.
THE SENSIBLE TEMPERATURE.
The much mooted question of the sensible temperature is
cliscust by J. Vincent in a memoir entitled G L Nouvelles recher-
- ---
.Wnr comtwil. ,So/tir conskirt. a. 252 ?. 249
2.215 2.075
I
3.000 2.154
2.006 t.. ............. \ November 6 . 2.09..
February 15
Means.
November 22 2.0.16
yay 13 .................................................
1307.
......................................... 2.1‘22
2.113
’ 1.942
2.006
2.035
2. a53
APRIL, 1908. IKON!l!miY wEB!rHER REVIEW. 111
ches sur la temperature climatologique,” published by the
Meteorological Service of Belgium (Brussels, 1907). The
principal object of this memoir is to show that the r81e played
by the humidity of the air in determining the superficial
temperature pf the body has been much overrated by nearly
all previous writers on the subject. M. Vincent‘s measure-
ments of the temperature of the skin were made by applying
a thermometer to the back of his left hand, and he concludes,
as the result of a long series of experiments, that when the
temperature is below the degree necessary to produce visible
perspiration (the most frequent case in temperate climates) the
humidity of the air has no influence whatever upon the sensi-
ble temperature, or temperature felt by the body. The only
factors to be considered are the temperature of the air and
the velocity of the wind; the temperature of the skin is
exprest by the equation
in which p is the temperature of the skin, t the temperature
of the air, and ‘u the velocity of the wind in meters per second.
(The temperatures are centigrade.)
This formula does not apply to the case of exposure to direct
sunshine, which introduces the additional factor of solar ra-
diation, not as yet satisfactorily dealt with.
HIW PRESSURE OVER EUROPE IN JANUABY, 1907.
The library has cataloged no less than eight papers, in the
meteorological and physical journals, on the remarkably high
barometric pressure that prevailed over eastern and central
Europe during the third decade of January, 1907. The latest is
by J. Vincent, in the “Annuaire m6t6orologique ” of #he Royal
Observatory of Belgium for 1908. M. Vincent gives a map of
the isobars at 7 a. m., January 23, from which it appears that
the pressure, reduced to sea level, then approsiinated 800 milli-
meters (nearly 31.60 inches) in the Baltic provinces of Russia.
This is the rr record ” pressure for that region.
p=30.1+0.2t-~(4.12 -0.13t)
THE CLIMATE AND WEATHER OF BALTIMOEE.
A German climatologist, Dr. Ernst Ludwig Voss, in a recent
memoir on tube rainfall of South America1, pays IL high tribute
to the first volume of the special publications of the Maryland
Weather Service, which, he says, “appeared excellently adapted,
in many respects, to serve as a model for my own work,” and
which he names along with the classic works of Hugo Meyer
and Ham.
I f thio encomium was deserved by Volume I it is even more
so by Volume II’, in which the methods of the earlier volume
are expanded and developed, until the work becomes a mine
of suggestions for the climatologist. Volume I1 deals with
the climate and weather of Baltimore, and is by Dr. Oliver L.
Fassig. This work contains so many admirable features-so
much that is worthy of detailed study-that we can not hope
to do it justice in a brief note, and will therefore only repeat
the statement made by Director Clark, in the introduction,
that it is probably the most complete study that has ever
been given to the climate and weather of a single city and its
environs.”
Climatologists will be glad to learn that the series of me-
moirs devoted to the several counties of Maryland, now in
course of publication, will ultimately be collected to form yet
another volume of the special publications of the Maryland
Weather Service.
Why, by the way, are these special publications without a
collective name? The title-pages read cc Maryland Weather
Servioe, Volume One,” Maryland Weather Servioe, Volume
Two.” But cc Maryland Weather Service ” is, technically, an
*Maryland weather service. Volume 11. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins prese. (An edition is also issued in which the title page and cover read: The climate and weather of Baltimore. * *) Parts Ia and Ib,
devoted to the climate of Baltimore, were separately issued in 19W5.
See the Monthly Weather Review for December, 1907, p. 576.
1907.
author, not a title, and bibliographers who deal with these
works are put to the necessity of interpolating a title in square
brackets.
APPARATUS FOR PROTECTION FROM FROST AND HAIL.
The Scientific American Supplement of May 9,1908, con-
tains an illustrated account of apparatus recently brought
out in France for protecting vines and fruit trees from injury
by frost and hail. Screens of canvas and straw matting, at-
tached to a system of framework, are so adjusted that the
action of a single lever at R central station will spread them
simultaneously over the entire region to be protected. Pro-
tection against frost is automatic; a thermometer is arranged
to release a counterweight when the temperature falls to the
danger point, and wires leading from the counterweight
mechanism draw the screens.
The inventor, M. Becker-Bertrand, of Rheims, has success-
fully applied his invention in the champagne-producing dis-
tricts of France.
THE RAINFALL OF ALSACE-LORRAINE.
This is the subject of a memoir by E. Kleinschmidt, publisht
as an appendix to the cr Deutsches Meteorologisches Jahrbuch”
of Alsace-Lorraine for 1903 (Strassburg i. E., 1907). The tables
include the mean monthly and yearly rainfall reduced to the
25-year period 1881-1905, and the mean rainfall for each lus-
trum from the beginning of observation, for some 60 stations;
also the mean number of days with rain during the period
1891-1905, for 37 stations.
This memoir supplements the corresponding sections of
Hellmann’s great work r c Die Niederschlige in den norddeut-
schen Stromgebieten ” (Berlin, 1906), which, while including
a greater number of stations for Alsace-Lorraine, brings their
records only down to 1890.
BRITISH SECOND-ORDER STATIONS.
The British Meteorological Office has taken steps to make
promptly available the results of observations at the second-
order stations in the British Isles. These have heretofore
been published in annual volumes. which did not appear until
four or five years after the period to which they referred.
Beginning with January, 1908, the results of twicedaily.
observations at 20 selected stations, together with observa-
tions of wind direction and velocity at anemograph stations,
are publisht in monthly installments about six weeks after the
completion of each month. The results for the remaining
second-order stations (monthly values only), which have here-
tofore formed Part I1 of the annual volume, are now included
in the Monthly and Annual Weather Reports, which are also
issued quite promptly.
This change is in line with the policy now happily becom-
ing general among the meteorological services of the world of
making public the results of their observations with the least
possible delay.
CLIMATE IN RELATION TO MAN.
Prof. Robert DeC. Ward’s rc Climate,” a separate chapters of
which have appeared from time to time in various scientific
journals, is now complete. Professor Ward has the knack of
crystallizing ideas that are more or less c r in the air ” and pre-
senting them in tangible form. The far-reaching effects of
climate upon the mental and physical life of man, and hence
upon human society and history, have been much to the fore
in recent scientific literature; and Professor Ward’s interest-
ing book is a sort of pr&s of current views on that subject.
After a brief account of climate in general, the author sketches
the history of the division of the earth’s surface into zones, from
the time of the early Greek geographers; the more elaborate
classifications of climate proposed in recent times by Bupan,
8 Ward, Robert DeCourcy. Climate considered especially in relation to man. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. (The science series, 20).
i i a MONTHLP WEATHEB I1EvIEw. APBIL, 1908
Kiippen, Herbertsonp and Ravenstein; the meteorological and
biological characteristics of the zones; the hygiene of the
zones; the conditions of human life in each zone; and, finally,
the questions relating to changes of climate within historic
times.
As Professor Ward deals mainly with the effects of climate,
so Prof. Carl Kassner, of the Royal Prussian Meteorological
Institute, in a little book brought out about the same time as
above,( gives an interesting and up-to-date account of the
effects' of weather upon agriculture, commerce, traneportation,
communication, manufactures, health, mortality, crime, etc.
(This subject is discussedin Part 111; the rest of the book deals
with the general subject of weather and weather forecasting.)
Both of these books are, as the French say, "full of actu-
ality;" they summarize the most recent literature of the sub-
jects treated, and their illustrations are largely drawn from
events of recent occurrence.
The formation of cuinulus clouds over great conflagrations
has frequently been reported. Features of special interest,
however, were presented by the clouds observed over the fire
at Chelsea, Mass., April 12, 1908, as described by Messrs. A.
Lawrence Rotoh and B. M. Varney in Science of May 15.
Owing to the low relative humidity (14 per cent at Blue Hill
Observatory) the heated air rose to a great height before con-
densation occurred, and the result was the formation of cumu-
lus at an elevation of between four and five miles (i. e., four or
five times the normal height of this form of cloud). Mr. Rotch
notes, however, that in thunderstorms the cumulo-nimbus
clouds rise into the cirrus level, and their tops have been
measured at Blue Hill above eight miles.
CLOUDS OVER THE CHELSEA FIRE.
TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE QERMAN METEOROLOQICAL SOCIETY.
The German Meteorological Society (Deutsche Meteoro-
logische Gesellschaft) is preparing to celebrate the completion
of its twenty-fifth year of existence at the eleventh general
meeting, to be held at Hamburg September 28,29, and 30. All
persons interested in meteorology are invited to attend. This
society was founded at Hamburg in 1883, and has now 320 mem-
bers. Its presiding oEcer is Doctor Hellmann, Director of the
Prussian Meteorological Institute. The society is especially
known to foreign meteorologists as the publisher, jointly with
the Austrian Meteorological Society, of the Meteorologische
Z ei tschri f t.
M. Angot, Director of the Bureau Central M8tkorologiqueY
in a note communicated to the French Academy of Sciences,
May 4,1908, summed up the situation of the European mete-
orological services with respect to wireless weather reports
from vessels on the Atlantic. The daily weather report of
the British Meteorological Office now provides a small table
for the wireless reports occasionally received from vessels of
the British Navy. However, any further utilization of wireless
reports by the European services is, for the moment, forbidden
by financial considerations, altho the Marconi Company has
offedd to transmit such reports at a reduced tariff.
This recalls the situation of a few years ago with regard
to the Iceland cable. As the financial difficulties were over-
come in that case, we hope the European services will soon
see their way to extend the field of their observations f a r to
the westward by means of wireless messages. A committee
was appointed at the Paris meeting of the International Mete-
orological Committee to investigate this subject, comprising
Messrs. Shaw (chairman), Angot, Herz, Moore, and Rykachev.
A SUMMER UA.MP OF MEZEOROLOGY.
We understand that some friends of the Weather Bureau
are interested in a meteorological encampment-a summer
Keeener, Carl.. Das Wetter und seine Bedeutung fiir daa praktls.&e Leben. Leipzig: Quelle and Meyer. 1906. (Wbsenschait und Bildung 26).
WIRELESS WEATHER REPORTS.
__ __ .-
school for meteorology-to be located in the beautiful and
famous open glades of oak, cedar, and hickory on Cedar
Heights, B bluff 100 feet above Cedar River, in Black Hawk
County, between Waterloo and Cedar Falls, Iowa. This is
not far from B permanent Chatauqua summer school, and we
can not too strongly encourage this and all similar meteoro-
logical enterprises. The open air is the place for the enthu-
siastic observer of the atmosphere. Here alone he meets with
frost and dew, rainbowa, clouds and winds, the auroral tints
of sunrise, and the twilight colors of sunset.
We recall vividly delightful hours spent during 1885-1890
at the camp of the Worcester Natural History Society. An
hundred boys and teachers spent the summer in tents on
Lake Quinsigamond. Instruction was given in every form of
woodcraft and natural history. The editor's privilege was to
talk about the clouds, how they are made, how high they are,
how fast they move, what they mean as to past and future
weather.
We bid godspeed to our Iowa colleagues, and hope the
campers will send news of their work to the readers of the
MONTHLY WEATHEB REVIEW.
We hope other summer camp schools may be established
in the interest of popular meteorological education.
S!l!6RMER'S WORX ON THE PHYSICS OF THE AURORA.'
Atmospherlc Electrlclty for March, 1908. Reviewed by P. Ci. NUTTINO. Reprinted from Terrestrial Magnetism and
With the recent advances in our knowledge of luminescence
and electrical effects in rarified gases, hypotheses of auroral
formation have become fewer in number and more specific in
detail. The spectroscope and transit long ago showed that the
aurora is an escitation to luminescence of the upper portions
of the earth's atmosphere. Further study with the spectro-
scope showed that the luminescence is such as could be caused
only by a bombardment of cathode rays, corpuscles, or nega-
tive electrons, whatever they may be called. If the light had
been caused by a steady current of electricity or by an elec-
tric wave it would be reddish orange instead of bluish white
in color and would exhibit an altogether different spectrum.
A disruptive discharge like lightning would produce a yellow-
ish white light, with still a third spectrum composed of heavy
lines instead of bands.
In order to account for the necessary cathode rays, Birke-
land' in 1896 supposed them to be emitted by the sun much
as they are emitted by a hot platinum wire or other heatod
body. Proceeding to the earth with about one-third the ve-
locity of light, these particles .would be entrapped by the
earth's magnetic field and excite the outer atmosphere to lumin-
escence.
Birkeland, however, did not consider his theory sufficient to
account for the known structure and variability of the aurora.
I n 1900 he advanced a sewnd theory' according to which he
supposed the cathode rays produced within the atmosphere by
other rays from the sun. In this manner he obtained more
unknown variables as factors in the aurora, but left the matter
in such an unsatisfactory state that three other theories of the
aurora made their appearance.
Arrheniud in 1900 supposed the necessary cathode rays to
be produced in the earth's atmosphere by particles larger than
molecules emitted by the sun and propelled by radiation pres-
1 Carl Starmer. Sur lea trajectoires des corpuscles Bl6ctrises dans Yes- pace sous l'action du magnetisme terrestre avec application aux aurores borealee. Arch. Sc. Phys. Genbve, July, August, September, October, 4
periode, v. !24,1907, p. 140, with 2 pl. Compt. Rend., 142. 1580-1583; 143, 140-144, 1906. CL aleo Vol. IX, T. M., p. 149 and Carl Stbrmer: sur un yroblhme relatif au mouvement des corpuscles Blectriques dans l'eepace cosmique, (Videnskabs-selskabets skrifter. I. Math.-naturv. Kl. 1907, No. 4) p. 10, 27& by 181. Kristiania 1907. 'E. Birkeland, Geneva Arch. des Sci. (a), 1, 497, 1896. *K. Birkelmd, Geneva Arch. de8 Bci. (4 , 12, 478, 1901. 4Svante Arrhenius, Phys. Zeit., 2, 81, 9 1 , 1901.