May, 1 9 2 t . ] METEOROLOGICAL ACOUSTICS. 6[7

Odds and Ends.

In addition to the above, there also are numerous other sounds that might, more or less justly, be called meteorological, such as the rustle of leaves, due to the rubbing together of the foliage as .trees and branches are shaken by the wind; the roar and whir of the tornado, due to the wrecking by the storm of all things in its path, to the wind eddies engendered by every obstruction, and to the more or less continuous rumble of thunder; the patter of rain, due to the successive falling of innumerable drops onto a roof, pavement, compact soil, and the like, or into a body of water ; the rattle of sleet (frozen raindrops), due to the driving of the small ice pellets against any hard object-- the windowpane, for instance; the clatter of hail, due to the fall of relatively large lumps of ice onto a roof, or other hard surface, and even (occasionally re- ported in connection with severe storms) to their striking to- gether in mid-air; the detonations of metebrites, due to violent disruptions owing to their sudden and intense heating; the sizzle of St. Ehno's fire, the faint crackle of the constant stream of feeble electric discharges from mast tips or other points thus strangely illuminated; the swish of the aurora, due, apparently, to autosuggestion, and hence wholly subjective; and, of course, many more. But the explanations of all are easy if not im- mediately obvious, and hence even their further listing is quite unnecessary.

The Obligatory Use of the Metric System in Japan. Cn. ED. GUILLAUME. (Comptes Rendus, March 29, I92I .)--The telegram from Shirio Kikkawa, Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures at Tokio, announcing the adoption of the law rendering obligatory the use of the metric system in the Japanese Empire, must have been very welcome to the great metrologist at Sevres. In Japan, the metric system became legal in I893. This was followed by a series of regulations aiming to accustom the people to the new umts, and now these preparatory measures have logically culminated in compulsory adoption.

In I913 the Parliament at Peking entered upon a similar program. China is now in the preparatory stages, and this is the case also in Siam. The aCtion of Japan will, no doubt, greatly influence the other nations of the Orient.

G. F. S.