Aerial Navigation and Meteorology

PROF, VAN EVERDINGEN'S outspoken criticism in NATURE of July 22, p. 637, of the meteorological arrangements outlined in Annexe G of the Convention for International Air Navigation is very welcome. Prior to the war the International Meteorological Committee met every three years in friendly gatherings for social intercourse and the transaction of business. Broadly speaking, the difficulties of the members were in obtaining sufficient funds to enable them, in their! respective services, to achieve the ends upon which they were agreed rather than in securing agreement on the desiderata for international exchange. Now that the former difficulties have been largely met as a result of the achievements of meteorology in the war, it would be calamitous if meteorologists failed to overcome the latter, and disturbed the unity of European meteoro-logy at a time when their efforts ought to be directed to achieving unity in world-meteorology.

THE Meteorological Section of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics met at Madrid at the beginning of October 1924, and the proceedings of the Section edited by the secretary, Prof. Eredia, have now been published. Some doubt had been felt by those familiar with international meteorological organisation as to whether the Meteorological Section of the Geophysical Union could find a broad enough field of operations without encroaching upon the proper domain of the International Meteorological Committee. The report of the work of the Section at Madrid which is contained in the present volume ought to remove any doubt of this kind. There are points where the work of the Section touches the work of the International Meteorological Committee, and under the guidance of a president less familiar than Sir Napier Shaw with international meteorological organisation, the Section might have wasted a certain amount of time in the unprofitable discussion of questions belonging to the field of official administration. The minutes of the five meetings, one of which was held conjointly with the Sections of Hydrology, Oceanography and Terrestrial Magnetism, show that the Commission confined itself to the encouragement and development of experimental and exploratory work in meteorology.

ON turning over this packet of the latest official publications on meteorology I feel disposed to survey them in a contemplative rather than in a critical attitude. They fall into two groups. The Catalogue of Meteorology in the Science Museum reviews the present in the light of the past, and the various publications of the Meteorological Office of the Air Ministry deal with the present in anticipation of a greater future. Board of Education. Catalogue of the Collections in the Science Museum, South Kensington, with Descriptive and Historical Notes and Illustrations: Meteorology. Pp. 107 + 6 plates. (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1922.) 1s. 6d. net. Air Ministry: Meteorological Office, London. A Short Course in Elementary Meteorology. By W. H. Pick. (M.O. 247.) Pp. 118. 1s. 6d. net. The Observer's Handbook. Approved for the use of meteorological observers by the Meteorological Office, and the Royal Meteorological Society. 1921 edition. (M.O. 191.) Pp. xxx + 140 + 18 plates + 10 + 17 plates + 5. 7s. 6d. net. Cloud Forms according to the International Classification: The Definitions and Descriptions approved by the International Meteorological Committee in 1910. With an atlas of photographs of Clouds selected from the Collection of Mr. G. A. Clarke of the Observatory, Aberdeen. (M.O. 233, 2nd edition.) Pp. 10 + 17 plates + 5. 1s. 6d. net., Notes on Meteorological Corrections for the use of Gunners. By D. Brunt and J. Durward. Pp. 18. 3d. net. Forecast Code for the Abbreviation of Weather Forecasts transmitted by Telegraphy or Radiography. Pp. 18. 1s. net. The New International Code for Meteorological Messages, 1922. Pp. 20. 4d. net. Weather Forecasting in the North Atlantic and Home Waters for Seamen. By Com. L. A. Brooke-Smith. Pp. 24. 6d. net. The Wireless Weather Manual. Pp. 24. 9d. net. (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1921-1922.)

Since 1893, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences has awarded, once every 10 years, a golden Buys Ballot Medal to a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the development of meteorology. The award was instituted in 1888 in honor of C. H. D. Buys Ballot (1817–90), upon his retirement as professor of physics at the University of Utrecht. Today, Buys Ballot is remembered best by Buys Ballot’s law, which gives the relation between wind and pressure. He derived this law from observations and published it in 1857.1 Buys Ballot was a pioneer both in weather forecasting and in recognizing the need for international cooperation in meteorology. He founded the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in 1854 and served as its chief director until his death, and was first president (1873–79) of the International Meteorological Committee, a predecessor of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Notes on the Meeting of the International Meteorological Committee at Zurich in September 1888

A MEETING of the International Meteorological Committee has been arranged to take place at Upsala, commencing August 20. Since the meeting at Munich in 1891, four new members have been added to the committee—Mr. William Davis, Cordoba; Mr. John Eliot, Calcutta; Mr. R. L. J. Ellery, F.R.S., Melbourne; and Dr. A. Paulsen, Copenhagen. The last named has replaced Dr. Lang, Munich, who died last year.

<i>Manual of Meteorology, Vol. III. The Physical Processes of Weather</i> . By Sir Napier Shaw, F.R.S., sometime director of the Meteorological Office, London, and president of the International Meteorological Committee. With the assistance of Elaine Austin, formerly of Newnham College, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. American agent, Macmillan. 445 pages, 149 figures. Price $9.00.