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World Survey of Climatology, 12. Climates of Central and South America
217 comprehensive picture of the interaction among the many organizations involved in hydrology and water resources at the international level will certainly prove of interest to many hydrologists. The book is aimed at a wide audience of hydrologists and scientists working in allied fields, and to the enquiring 'student' of the physical sciences. Max A. Kohler, Silver Springs, Md.
CLIMATOLOGY W. Schwerdtfeger (Editor), 1976. World Survey of Climato/ogy, 12. Climates of Central and South America. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 532 pp., U.S. $88.50, Dfl. 230.00. This, the ninth to appear of the planned series of 15 volumes, is edited by Warner Schwerdtfeger, and most of his eight collaborators are based in U.S.A. The range of climates dealt with is enormous, from the equatorial jungle to Andean glaciers; from desert in north Chile to the Strait of Magellan with rain on 320 days per year. A major problem is that we still do not know just how extreme some of the climates are. When Richard Kirwan (Estimate o f Temperature in Different Latitudes, London) attempted a world survey of temperature in 1787 he found only one value for the whole of South America. A century later Henry Hennessy (Trans. R.I.A., 24: 3 7 1 428; 1867) could draw only one of his synthermal lines through the continent. The situation has improved since then, more so than some of the new volume suggests. In most cases the data printed are for periods ending in 1960 and in the case of Brazil the standard period quoted is 1912 to 1942. Much of the text was written before 1970 and the picture on the dust cover is misleading in that little use has been made of satellite photography. After an excellent introduction by the editor dealing mainly with the circulation pattern, six chapters deal with the main subareas. Prohaska deals with Argentina, Paraguay, element by element, with adequate maps and diagrams. By comparison Miller's account of the climate of Chile comprises
only short descriptive essays on the arid north, the central and the southern parts of Chile. For Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador Johnson uses the same presentation as Prohaska, and, in an important appendix, H. Lettau discusses dynamic and energetic factors concerned in the aridity of the Pacific Coast. Brazil has an excellent chapter by Ratisbona, treating the climatic factors, then each of the main elements, and then the climatic types. Snow deals with 'northern South America', i.e. north of the equator, but deals with the individual countries rather than the area as a whole. This chapter is sufficiently recent to include satellite pictures showing cloud cover. Portig's contribution on Central America is largely concerned with the Caribbean islands. Chapter 8, by Alaka, on Atlantic Tropical Storms, would have been more appropriam to Volume 11 (North America) than Volume 12, and although some information has been updated, the text was written as long ago as 1965. The convention of allocating a whole page to each station's climatological summary is very wasteful of paper and a more compact format would be preferable. There are good indexes and the volume will be a valuable reference work for everyone interested in world or regional clima* tology. F.E. Dixon, Dublin
GEOTHERMICS A. Adam (Editor), 1976. Geoelectric and Geothermal Studies. Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, 752 pp., U.S. $48.00. This is an immense book, comprising some 752 pages of compact typesetting. It is a collection of 86 short papers by 95 authors, all from the East-European scientific community. According to the preface, this collection of papers is an outgrowth of co-operative international scientific activity initiated during the International Geophysical Year and continued during the Upper Mantle Project. This collection represents one of several efforts of collecting data acquired during international co-operative programs, and was organized
CLIMATOLOGY W. Schwerdtfeger (Editor), 1976. World Survey of Climato/ogy, 12. Climates of Central and South America. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 532 pp., U.S. $88.50, Dfl. 230.00. This, the ninth to appear of the planned series of 15 volumes, is edited by Warner Schwerdtfeger, and most of his eight collaborators are based in U.S.A. The range of climates dealt with is enormous, from the equatorial jungle to Andean glaciers; from desert in north Chile to the Strait of Magellan with rain on 320 days per year. A major problem is that we still do not know just how extreme some of the climates are. When Richard Kirwan (Estimate o f Temperature in Different Latitudes, London) attempted a world survey of temperature in 1787 he found only one value for the whole of South America. A century later Henry Hennessy (Trans. R.I.A., 24: 3 7 1 428; 1867) could draw only one of his synthermal lines through the continent. The situation has improved since then, more so than some of the new volume suggests. In most cases the data printed are for periods ending in 1960 and in the case of Brazil the standard period quoted is 1912 to 1942. Much of the text was written before 1970 and the picture on the dust cover is misleading in that little use has been made of satellite photography. After an excellent introduction by the editor dealing mainly with the circulation pattern, six chapters deal with the main subareas. Prohaska deals with Argentina, Paraguay, element by element, with adequate maps and diagrams. By comparison Miller's account of the climate of Chile comprises
only short descriptive essays on the arid north, the central and the southern parts of Chile. For Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador Johnson uses the same presentation as Prohaska, and, in an important appendix, H. Lettau discusses dynamic and energetic factors concerned in the aridity of the Pacific Coast. Brazil has an excellent chapter by Ratisbona, treating the climatic factors, then each of the main elements, and then the climatic types. Snow deals with 'northern South America', i.e. north of the equator, but deals with the individual countries rather than the area as a whole. This chapter is sufficiently recent to include satellite pictures showing cloud cover. Portig's contribution on Central America is largely concerned with the Caribbean islands. Chapter 8, by Alaka, on Atlantic Tropical Storms, would have been more appropriam to Volume 11 (North America) than Volume 12, and although some information has been updated, the text was written as long ago as 1965. The convention of allocating a whole page to each station's climatological summary is very wasteful of paper and a more compact format would be preferable. There are good indexes and the volume will be a valuable reference work for everyone interested in world or regional clima* tology. F.E. Dixon, Dublin
GEOTHERMICS A. Adam (Editor), 1976. Geoelectric and Geothermal Studies. Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, 752 pp., U.S. $48.00. This is an immense book, comprising some 752 pages of compact typesetting. It is a collection of 86 short papers by 95 authors, all from the East-European scientific community. According to the preface, this collection of papers is an outgrowth of co-operative international scientific activity initiated during the International Geophysical Year and continued during the Upper Mantle Project. This collection represents one of several efforts of collecting data acquired during international co-operative programs, and was organized