have the Niagara Falls region, Philadelphia, Washington, St. Louis, etc.

In the political map of Europe, p. 118, the color scheme still retains the old eastern and southeastern boundary of Russia, obsolete years ago. True, a pink line with a label in one place suggests a correction, but it is only a suggestion.

Alaska really deserves more attention and a larger and better map.

Shaded relief maps, so common in recent texts, are conspicuous by their absence, only one being given. In their place contour lines and tinting are used. The plan is admirable, and should have been applied more generously to bathymetric data. Only one subaqueous contour is given, that of 1,000 fathoms. The 100 fathom line would be of more value.

very scant attention.

The ocean on the whole gets

A full-page map of South America is repeated within three pages, with no gain apparent. Insets here of the environs of Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires would be grateful additions. There is really small excuse for the constant duplication of maps, physical and political. More skill in map making would put all the advantages of both maps into one without crowding. A map may be loaded with information, physical and political, and still be legible, and every bright boy and girl would be thankful for the addition. I need only cite Longmans' School Atlas for an approach to the quality of work we might have.

On the whole, all our colored maps in school geographies are inferior. When shall we have in our text books the accurate artistic map work of England and Germany? There has been almost no improvement in the quality of our school maps in the last twentyfive years. J. P. G.

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Appalachia, Boston. March. Scudder, The Alpine Orthoptera of North America; Thompson, At the Headwaters of the Bow; Habel, The North Fork of the Wapta; Balch, Reminiscences of Tyrol; Cogshall, A Trip to the Summit of Orizaba; Douglass, The Altitude of Popocatepetl and Orizaba ; Douglass, Effects of

High Mountain Climbing; Dodge, A Winter Trip to the Top of Mts. Washington and Adams in 1892. Geographical Journal, London.

April. Feilden, Visits to Barents and Kara Seas, with Rambles in Novaya Zemlya, 1895 and 97; Pike, A Cruise on the East of Spitzbergen; Cavendish, Through Somaliland and Around and South of Lake Rudolf; Hedin, Four Years' Travel in Central Asia; Dr. Hassert in Upper Albania; Stephenson, Notes on a Section of North Mexico; The Caucasus: East Siberia.

National Geographic Magazine, Washington. April. Scidmore, The Northwest Passes to the Yukon; Galland, Overland Routes to the Klondike; Dall, The Future of the Yukon Goldfields; Nelson, Notes on the Wild Fowl and Game Animals of Alaska; Greely, Climatic Conditions of Alaska; Dall, A Yukon Pioneer, Mike Lebarge; Emmons, Alaska and Its Mineral Resources; Perkins, The Civil Government of Alaska; Evans, Some of the Conditions and Possibilities of Agriculture in Alaska. Scottish Geographical Magazine, Edinburgh. April. Gannett, The Material Growth and Present Condition of the United States; Sutherland, Along a Shan Road, Southern Shan States, Upper Burma; Antarctic Exploration.

Société Royale Belge de Géographie, Brussels. Tanaka, Archipelago of Japan; Delvaux, Vasco da Gama and the Maritime Discoveries of Portugal.

THE

JOURNAL OF SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY

A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMON-SCHOOL TEACHER OF GEOGRAPHY.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

One dollar a year in advance. Single copies 15 cents. Subscriptions should be sent to the Journal of School Geography, 41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, Pa.

Mss. intended for publication, books, etc., intended for review, and all correspondence, except concerning subscriptions, should be sent to the responsible editor, Richard E. Dodge, Teachers College, 120th Street West, New York City.

CLIMATIC NOTES MADE DURING A VOYAGE
AROUND SOUTH AMERICA.

The ideal method of teaching meteorology is unquestionably this to supplement the knowledge of the meteorological conditions of the student's home district, gained by his own observations and by laboratory work on the daily weather maps, by a study of the climates of other parts of the world, at first as these climates are presented in books, and then by the personal acquaintance with the different types which travel gives. However well a teacher may know his text-books, he can never enjoy the feeling of personal acquaintance with other climatic conditions than his own, unless he has had the privilege of observing these conditions for himself. This meteorological field work, if it may so be called, which can be done by anyone well equipped by previous study who has the good fortune to travel, is a step in meteorological education whose value cannot be overestimated.

Of the truth of the latter assertion the writer has lately had abundant proof. He has, during the past year, made a somewhat extended trip around South America, and although he had, on starting, what seemed a very fair knowledge of the meteorological conditions of the different wind and calm belts through which he

was to pass, the personal experience of these conditions, gained on this trip, has given him a living knowledge which is incalculably superior to that which he possessed before. The journey has been so very beneficial to him in this way that he wishes to make it of some value to other teachers, and in this hope he has, in the present paper, summarized some of the more important lessons he himself has learned. It is not the intention of this article to give full accounts of the climates of the different places visited, but only to call attention to such climatic peculiarities as particularly attracted the writer's notice.*

The route taken was as follows: From New York to Rio de Janeiro, with brief stops at Pernambuco and Bahia; Rio to Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires to Valparaiso, via the Falkland Islands and the Strait of Magellan, and Valparaiso up the West Coast of South America to Panama. The advantages of such a journey from a meteorological point of view are very many. Starting from New York the voyage to Rio takes one through the horse latitudes, the northeast trades, the doldrums and the southeast trades, ending on the Tropic of Capricorn. From Rio south to Buenos Aires and hence to the Falklands, the horse latitudes of the southern hemisphere are passed through, and at the Falklands we are well within the latitudes of the prevailing westerly winds, which continue during the passage of the Strait of Magellan, and for some distance up the west coast of South America. The voyage up this west coast is intensely interesting, because it extends from the southern districts of Chile, where rainfall is abundant, up past regions of gradually decreasing rainfall until the desert belt of northern Chile and Peru is reached, and then further north to the equator, where rain is once more abundant. No better horizontal cross-section of the atmosphere can be obtained than that which such a voyage around South America affords.

It may be well at this point to review the main facts concerning the general conditions of winds and rainfall in South America. Interesting as that continent is from a climatic point of view, its chief interest lies in its rainfall distribution as determined by the

* The instruments used in making meteorological observations on this trip were the following: Richard frères barograph; maximum and minimum thermometers; sling psychrometer; aneroid barometers; water temperature thermometer, and Dines' Patent Pressure Portable Anemometer.

great wind and calm belts across which it extends, and by its own physical features. Reaching roughly from lat. 10° N. to 55° S., it stretches from the northeast trade belt well into the latitudes of the prevailing westerly winds of the southern hemisphere, with the equatorial rainy belt, the southeast trade and the horse latitudes coming in between. This immense extent, across these diverse belts, ensures striking differences in the rainfall of different parts of the continent, but the physical features of its surface are also of the greatest importance in controlling the precipitation.

The essential features in the rainfall of South America were first distinctly emphasized by Darwin. He stated that in the latitudes of prevailing easterly winds the eastern side of the continent and the eastern slopes of the Cordillera are well watered, while the western slopes are dry. On the other hand, in the latitudes where the prevailing winds are from the west, the western slopes of the mountains have the precipitation while the eastern side is dry. In accordance with this brief statement, which really gives a compact summary of the general rainfall types of South America, we find that the rainfall along the northeastern coast (Venezuela, the Guianas, northeastern Brazil), which lies more or less at right angles to the course of the northeast trades, is considerable. After passing the highlands the winds continue on their course inland, but the rainfall is not so great as on the coast until the Cordilleran range is reached, on the western side of the continent. In climbing up the slopes of this range, the winds must necessarily deposit a very large part of the water vapor they contain, and hence the rainfall over the eastern base of the Andes is very heavy, while the narrow western coastal strip is left dry. In the same way, the mountain ranges along the coast of southeastern Brazil, against which the southeast trades blow and across which they climb, have abundant rainfall, and the whole interior country from there up to the base of the Cordillera, is sufficiently watered, the precipitation becoming heavy, as is the case in the northeast trades, on the eastern slopes of the western mountains, while the western coastal strip again remains dry. In the northern portion of the continent the simple trade rainfall is considerably complicated by the presence of the equatorial rainy belt as well, but a discussion of these complications is not necessary here.