Abstract
THIS work does not fulfil the expectations raised by its title. It is a prize essay of 220 large octavo pages, divided into three sections. The first treats of the climatic conditions of a glacial invasion, and here the author agrees with a number of German writers whom he quotes, in considering that a glacial epoch is due to a lowering of mean animal temperature and a diminution of the annual range, accompanied by an increased rainfall in summer. The next section treats of the temperature of the air. We find a large collection of empiric formulæ, taken for the most part from German authors, some of which are based on assumptions which appear to be far from satisfactory, and which certainly cannot be verified in the exhaustive way which one would wish before applying them to find the temperature in the Glacial Age. Among these there is one more important than the others, in which t, the mean annual temperature at any given locality, is expressed in terms of no less than fifteen physical quantities, such as the supposed temperature of an ideal sky,1 the absolute radiating power of this sky, the transmissive powers of the atmosphere for radiation from earth and water, and for sun-heat, and last, but not least important, “a term of correction which expresses the effect of the physical and meteorological condition of the locality,” and this term may, according to the author, oscillate between −6° C. and +6° C.
Le Cause Dell' Era Glaciale.
By Luigi de Marchi, Libero Docente di Meteorologia nella R. Universita di Pavia. (Pavia: Fratelli Fusi.)
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Le Cause Dell' Era Glaciale. Nature 52, 412 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/052412a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/052412a0