Traité élémentaire de Météorologie

Abstract

IN the opinion of the author, meteorology, or more generally the physics of the earth, does not receive in France that study and attention which the subject deserves, both from its inherent interest and its possible usefulness. He traces this indifference to the absence of regular teaching in the schools devoted to higher education, to the want of an enlarged professoriate, and, though the statement is not made directly in words, to a deficiency of text-books written with the special object of instruction. He contrasts the devotion that is paid to the study of meteorology in the United States with the apparent carelessness that he perceives in his own country, and offers this book, which is the résumé of a course of lectures he has given in his professorial capacity, to attract more general attention to the subject, and to fill a gap in the scientific literature which his experience teaches him exists. Without the same means of judging of its necessity as M. Angot possesses, we cannot say how far this hope will be realised, but one can have no hesitation in saying that he has offered to his countrymen an admirable treatise, well calculated to serve the ends he has in view. It is well arranged, clearly written, not overloaded with details, either numerical or instrumental, presenting all the facts that are fairly well established, and indicating as far as necessary the lines of future investigation.

Traité élémentaire de Météorologie.

Par Alfred Angot, Météorologeste titulaire au bureau central météorologique. Pp. vi + 412. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1899)