A HANDBOOK OF CLIMATOLOGY.
Handbook of Climatology. By Dr. Julius Hann. Translated by R. de Courcy Ward. (Macmillan and Co. 12s. 6d. net.)—We have here that part of Dr. Hann's (of Vienna) great work which deals with general climatology. That it is crowded with interest- ing and important facts need hardly be said. To deal with it adequately as a scientific exposition of the great natural agencies and conditions which go to make up climate is beyond our power. (" Climate is the sum total of the weather.") But examples it is possible to give. Here is a significant table showing the import- ance of rainfall "in terms of sheep," if the expression may be allowed. A region with 8-10 in. can support from eight to nine sheep to the square mile ; a region with 34 in. can support two thousand sir hundred and thirty. In some of the United States warnings of frost are sent from the meteorological centres. Cranberry beds are flooded when these warnings arrive ; the danger of excessive radiation, familiar to all growers of fruit, is avoided by the veil of mist thus produced. Sunshine is another important matter. The City of London has during the two mid- winter months of December and January only thirty hours of sun- shine, not quite half-an-hour daily; Greenwich has ninety, Kew one hundred and forty-two. Three weeks of fog in London in 1880 were marked by an excess mortality of two thousand nine hundred and ninety-four. Readers will find the time spent on this volume—and it is not one that can be mastered in a hurry— a productive investment.
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