Sir Robert Ball and “The Cause of an Ice Age”

Abstract

I SHOULD like to correct one statement in my long letter in NATURE of October 17. I there said that Sir Robert Ball had not withdrawn his claim to the discovery of the law of distribution of summer and winter temperature in each hemisphere, which had in fact been previously published by Wiener. I am reminded by Mr. Kendall that I had overlooked a second edition of the book in which credit is duly assigned to Wiener. Thereby hangs a tale. I have looked in vain through Low's well-known list for any trace of a second edition. I also looked through the British Museum Catalogue without any result, and inquired in the Copyright Office in that establishment, and was told that no such book had reached the Museum. Lastly, the Museum people tell me they have applied to the publisher for the book, and have received the reply that it is only a re-issue, and not a new edition with new matter in it.