The Year.Book of Science. Edited by Professor T. G. Bonney.
(Cassell and Co.)—Electricity, the science which the majority take most interest in, is to have a new standard ohm which is to do away with the various hindrances and absurdities of standards of different value. A great deal has been done, too, in electro- chemics and electro-magnetics. In the domain of terrestrial magnetism, the passage of great storms has excited much interest, particularly in view of their apparent connection between the Aurora Borealis and sun-spots. It seems also that the maxima of thunderstorms coincide with the minima of sun-spots, and vice- versa. The results of ten years' working of the Campbell-Stokes Sunshine Recorder in forty-six stations give, as, indeed, we knew before, more sunshine to the coast than to inland stations, and confirm general impressions about the comparative sunniness of parts of the United Kingdom. It is possible, by- the-way, that places situated a mile or two inland would be found sunnier than the actual coast-line. The scientific opinion seems to be against the atmospheric propagation of influenza ; this is not the popular opinion, which is notoriously the opposite. The Zimbabwe ruins of Mashonaland are decided to be of Arabian origin. In spite of its technical nature, The Year-Book of Science is interesting to ordinary readers.
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