Scientific Serials

Abstract

Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, December 1893.—In an article entitled “March to October, 1893,” Mr. Symons deals with the temperature of the last eleven years in the northwest of London, with instruments identical in themselves and in exposure, with especial reference to the exceptional summer of the year 1893. The first two tables give the average monthly maximum in the shade, and the average maximum in the sun for 1883–92, compared with the mean values for 1893. In both cases the means of 1893 exceeded the average in each month, the excess of the shade maximum ranging from 1°˙2 in September to 9°˙7 in April, while the sun maximum shows an average excess of 7°˙1, ranging from 1°˙8 in July to 10°˙8 in May. The tables showing the extreme maxima in shade and sun for each month of 1893, with the average of the highest reading in the ten corresponding months, again have plus signs in every instance in 1893, tne greatest excess of the former being 10°˙5 in April, while the mean of the eight months (March to October) shows an excess of 6°. The severe test of comparing the highest reading for each month of 1893 with the absolute highest reading in the corresponding month during the preceding ten years, shows that the season as a whole was unprecedented. The shade maxima wete unequalled in April, June, July and August, the excess in April amounting to 5°˙4, whereas in no other year of the ten have unequalled shade maxima occurred in more than two months. In some particulars August 1893 is unparalleled in thirty-six years. The shade temperature at 9h. a.m. on the 18th, viz. 84° 3, was 3°˙5 higher than any other 9h. a.m. reading, and the shade maximum on the 16th to 19th all exceeded 90°, the only instance of this temperature being reached on three consecutive days.