Later, in the same article (p.

170), Mr.Lowell says: "Clouds transmit approximately 20 per cent.

of the heat reaching them: a clear sky at sea-level 60 per cent.
As the sky is half the time cloudy the mean transmission is 35 per cent." These statements seem incompatible with that quoted above.
The figure he uses in his calculations for the actual albedo of the earth, 0.75, is also not only improbable, but almost self-contradictory, because the albedo of cloud is 0.72, and that of the great cloud-covered planet, Jupiter, is given by Lowell as 0.75, while Zollner made it only 0.62.Again, Lowell gives Venus an albedo of 0.92, while Zollner made it only 0.50 and Mr.Gore 0.65.This shows the extreme uncertainty of these estimates, while the fact that both Venus and Jupiter are wholly cloud-covered, while we are only half-covered, renders it almost certain that our albedo is far less than Mr.Lowell makes it.

It is evident that mathematical calculations founded upon such uncertain data cannot yield trustworthy results.

But this is by no means the only case in which the data employed in this paper are of uncertain value.
Everywhere we meet with figures of somewhat doubtful accuracy.