The French travellers M. Rohan Chabot and Captain Grimaud have returned after exploring the region of Mossamedes and examining the cataracts of Middle Kunene, the journey being continued to the western basin of the Upper Zambesi. Commander Tilho has explored the region around Lake Tehad, and Dr. Abdul Ghani, a member of a Turkish mission, has given an account of the Jarabub oasis in Northern Africa which he had visited.
Miss Lowthian Bell has accomplished an enterprising journey to the south and south-east of Damascus, finally reaching Shammar, and has obtained interesting archæological results; and Captain Shakespear, British Resident at Koweit, has travelled the country from the Persian Gulf to Suez, along a route seldom trodden by Europeans.
J. R. A.
Meteorology.
Some changes have been introduced in the arrangements and work of the Meteorological Office in consequence of an increased grant received from the Treasury. In the reports the Scottish National data are now to be included, so that one publication will contain the whole data of the British Isles; additional instrumental equipment is to be provided at Kew; a weather station is to be established at Falmouth; and several junior professional assistants are to be added to the staff.
Recently published accounts of balloon ascents show that the mean height of the stratosphere is 10 kilometres, the temperature being -54.5° C., the temperature at the maximum height of 14.7 kilometres being -52° C. The average temperature of the air column between 1 and 9 kilometres is -21° C.
Dr. Walker, in the memoirs of the Indian Meteorological Department, emphasises the necessity for the correlation between two quantities to be a high one if it is to express the probability of a physical relation; chance may give a correlation factor which when carefully interpreted has no physical meaning.
In Terrestrial Magnetism reports appear of the work done by the Carnegie in her second cruise round the world. It is stated that along the Gulf Stream to Hammerfest the deviation of the compass west of true north is greater in general, by as much as 1° to 2°, than that given by British and American charts. The potential gradient is much the same over the sea as over the land, but the radio-activity is smaller, and the specific conductivity greater, on water than on land.
At Eskdalemuir Observatory electrical observations of the atmosphere have not been taken over any long period, but what have been recorded differ considerably from the results at Kew. In the north the conditions are much more disturbed than in the south, especially in the summer, the mean potential gradient being higher at Kew than at Eskdalemuir. At the latter station the number of ions between summer and winter is small and uncertain.