Specific electrical conductivity of the air at sea

Although many observations of potential and dispersion have been made along the sea shores very little has been done at a distance from land. A. Boltzmann, 1 in the summer of 1904, obtained some observations on a voyage from Germany to New York and return. He obtained a high ratio of positive to negative ions in the atmosphere, especially at great distances from land. During a recent voyage of the Leyland Line Steamship “Cestrian” from Liverpool to Boston, the writer was able to obtain, under the auspices of the Department Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, some observations of the specific electrical conductivity of the air by means of a new form of instrument recently devised by Dr. H. Gerdien, of Göttingen, Germany. 2